Burn so brightly
by Judin
Summary: "What's my name, Castiel?" Dean asked, leaning forward on the chair. "You know it, come on." "Dean," Castiel said, but in two voices at once, one human and child-like, the other vibrating on a discordant frequency. Destiel, ageregressionfic, wingfic.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Burn so brightly

**Author:** Judin

**Rating:** R (various reasons)

**Genre**: Angst, romance, kidfic

**Pairing**/**Characters**: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Bobby, and a few surprises.

**Spoilers**: S1 – S6. Goes AU post—S6.

**Warnings**: Some violence.

**Chapter specific Summary**: _"What's my name, Castiel?" Dean asked, leaning forward on the chair. "You know it, come on."_

"_Dean," Castiel said, but in two voices at once, one human and child-like, the other vibrating on a discordant frequency._

**Author's notes: **The waiting for S7 was killing me, and fandom was weeping and fearing the worst. So I thought I'd make everything alright ... through fanfiction! :D

**Beta reader: **Corvus, who squee-d in all the right places, Aevylonya, whose loving beatings I depend upon as the masochist I am, and Nenja, who hangs upside-down from my ceiling.

* * *

><p><em>I wish I had no reason to continue the story of Sam and Dean. When we left them last they were separated, wounded and grieving, but triumphant. Their little family had taken on Heaven and Hell and beaten the odds. Now the Impala lies crushed and upended on an abandoned road outside an empty meat factory. Their home and castle, their box of treasured memories, has been destroyed.<em>

_After a year lived in a sort of dream state, the days warm and muffled and the nights strangely empty, they have been reunited, brother with brother, body with soul, human with angel, only to be left once more wounded and grieving, and this time, defeated._

_That's why I wish there were no more books, no more words, nothing more to tell, but I'm just the author, and as any author can tell you, the characters sometimes take on a will of their own._

_Now Dean kneels by his beloved car, and every line of his body, from his hunched shoulders to his bowed head, speak of disappointment and loss. Sam sits next to him with his head in his hands, his lips bloodless, muscles straining, his long frame trembling. Bobby stands stern and silent beside them._

_Castiel has betrayed them._

_Let me take you back, and I'll try to explain._

…

"_So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord, or I shall destroy you."_

_Sam chose that moment to fall to his knees, struggling to breathe and clutching his head, where fire danced and skin sizzled in vivid recollections._

_Dean crossed to him quickly, barely able to look at Castiel as he passed him, but although he was terrified of the thing standing there so calmly while Sam was choking on the floor, he was also angry. "I'm not bowing down," Dean said through clenched teeth, kneeling by his brother and putting an arm around his shoulders. "I thought you were fighting for free will," he growled at Castiel. "What happened to that?"_

_Without waiting for a response, he turned his back and focused on his brother. "Hey, Sammy, you're okay," he mumbled, trying to make his little brother look at him. "I'm here." Sam glanced up at Dean, but only for his head to fall forward again as another wave of fire tore him from reality and into the waking nightmare of his head._

_Castiel's expression softened as he watched them. "My road to victory was not without moments of regret. Come," he said and took a step closer to the boys. "I said I would save Sam and I will."_

_Dean rose quickly and barred the way. "You're not laying a finger on my brother."_

_Behind them, Bobby pulled a handgun from his belt and aimed it at Castiel. "I suggest you go be somebody else's new God," he said, barely contained fury in his voice and in his eyes. "Haven't you done enough damage?"_

_Castiel gave the gun a meaningful, condescending look. "And what damage to you intend to wreak with that, Bobby Singer?" He shifted his immeasurably heavy gaze from Bobby to Dean. "I understand. It's hard to admit when you've been wrong. I will ask no more of you now than that you don't hurt yourself by getting in my way. I _will_ help Sam. I keep my word."_

"_You can take your word and shove it up –"_

"_Dean," Sam said faintly._

_Dean knelt down again, all attentive love. "I'm right here." No one would be surprised to learn that he had reared Sam almost from infancy._

_Sam grabbed his shoulder and struggled to rise. Dean helped him up. Sam faced Castiel, tottering, but on his feet, supported by Dean's grip on his arm and his own grip on his big brother's shoulder._

"_Sam," Castiel said, as if he was a parent speaking to a reluctant child. "I can make it stop. The pain, the confusion. I can heal you."_

"_You can fuck off," Sam said hoarsely. "I don't want your help."_

_Castiel sighed, betraying his mounting impatience, and took a quick step forward, raising his hand. Dean moved in front of Sam just as Bobby pulled the trigger on the gun._

_Castiel jerked as the first bullet hit him in the back. Another followed, and another, the sound of the shots echoing and joining until it rolled like thunder in the large room._

_But no blood stained the back of Castiel's trench coat. When Bobby had emptied the gun, Castiel turned around slowly. "You're such children," he said, as if he was only now realising it. "You knew that wouldn't stop me." And he lifted his hand again. Bobby took an automatic step back, eyes widening._

"_Cas, don't!" Dean shouted._

_How did that shout halt the avalanche-like progress of a million souls? Why did Castiel stop? His hand remained outstretched but nothing happened. He looked over his shoulder at Dean, and perhaps there was, for a moment, a glimmer of Dean's gentle guardian angel in his eyes. Did something too powerful to be distorted even by the power of Purgatory still live deep inside him and respond to the desperation in Dean's voice?_

_But the glimmer, if it was ever there, was gone in a moment._

_He let his hand fall. "I said I would be a better God, and I will be. I will give you time to come around. In one month I will find you, and then you can tell me if I have not been a good father to this unruly world. In the meantime, Sam, should you change your mind, pray to me."_

_Dean's face was stony, masking the agony he felt. Sam was horribly sick, and Castiel had become some jarring, terrifying Other that Dean hardly recognised. "You're not Cas. I don't know what you are, but you're not my friend. You're not welcome, not now, not in a month, not ever."_

_Castiel sighed. "Always so stubborn, Dean. I wanted so badly to prove to you that I was doing my part to fight for free will. Now I see how naive I was. You might have given me free will, but you never wanted me to use it."_

_For Dean these words came out of nowhere, but his failure to come up with a reply was covered by Castiel's departure. There was no sound of beating wings, no flickering lights. He was just gone, from one moment to the next._

_Sam, Dean and Bobby dragged themselves outside on heavy legs only to rediscover the state of the Impala, and so we come once more to the place where we began. On that abandoned road, full of rage and sorrow, the little family didn't know whether to curse or grieve the one they had lost._

_Somehow they found the strength to move, take one step and then another and another, until Bobby's porch loomed before them and the door opened to welcome them into the embrace of a second home._

_The next month was spent in furious search of a weapon, a spell, a loophole in the natural order, anything that could take Castiel down. Bobby and Sam were fuelled by anger, and who can blame them? Who could say that Castiel had not gone too far? Dean on the other hand felt nothing. His grief, loss and rage had merged into a kind of tumultuous numbness. Only in the morning, in those first moments of waking, when the mind is still sorting dream from reality, did he fully feel the pain of all that had been lost. So he stopped sleeping. He ate little and spoke little, kept himself going through sheer determination and the inescapable, perhaps irrational feeling that he was somehow responsible for the powerhouse wreaking chaos on the world._

_Castiel's last words to him rang in his ears._

_If he had a spare moment he would work on the Impala, but even she caused him pain. She threatened to make him feel, because she is full of memories, and some of the more recent ones did not belong exclusively to Sam and Dean._

_Sam struggled daily with his memories of Hell. He could never anticipate when a new recollection would surface and render him prostrate on the floor or screaming in terror in a corner. He couldn't focus his mind for long periods of time, and after the first few nights of horrible nightmares, he, like his brother, stopped sleeping. But he never even considered praying, and neither Dean nor Bobby ever suggested it._

_Meanwhile, news stations all over the globe were busy keeping track of the social and ecological changes taking place day by day. Rivers and lakes were springing up in barren areas, the atmosphere was clearing of greenhouse gasses, great city slums were being cleaned up as if by invisible hands, and warring factions found themselves without weapons overnight. People were flocking to the churches, religion was popular like it hadn't been since the middle ages. But Heaven must be all but emptied of angels by now. The boys sometimes wondered fearfully whether any of them had been found worthy and left alive._

_They tried to summon Balthazar once._

_And around the world, people were going missing, disappearing without a trace. To most it was an unexplained and terrifying phenomenon, but to Sam, Dean and Bobby it just meant that they didn't have to worry about hunting on top of everything else. But could they be sure that every smote Tom, Dick and Harry had been a shifter, a vampire or a Jefferson Starship? And even if they were, had they deserved their fate, or were they like Lenore: victims of an absolutist viewpoint?_

_They laboured for a month, but there are precious few ways to take down a being of God-like powers, and most of them are known only to those who have God-like powers._

_So as midnight struck and the clocks announced that the long-awaited day had arrived, Sam and Bobby closed their books with no weapon, no spell, no plan prepared. Dean sat outside on the porch, deep in thought. Exhausted in every way, they went to bed to wait for daylight and their own destruction._

_The sun rose and cast its yellow light over Bobby Singer's porch. A few hours later, when the air had grown warm, the little family came outside and sat down. They did not speak, but waited in silence. Dean sometimes shifted uncomfortably, like he would have liked to get up and pace. Something was weighing heavily on his mind. Occasionally he would cast a quick glance at one or the other of his companions, but if they noticed, they did not think to wonder at it._

_An hour passed. Two hours. Bobby went inside and came back with his little, old radio._

_He turned it on and found a local station where a lady was in the middle of a newscast._

"– one month today since more than two hundred men and women from all over the world simultaneously came forward and declared that God's Archangels were dead and that a new God had replaced the old. At first dismissed as a freak phenomenon, these people were quickly given credit when radical ecological and social changes began to be seen around the globe. With us today we have Bible scholar James K–"

"_Turn it off," Dean said irritably._

"_No, leave it on. Let's see if they are happy with the work I have done."_

_The three on the porch shot to their feet._

_Castiel stood some little distance away, watching them calmly, but his quiet confidence was undermined by how tired he looked. There were dark circles under his eyes, his hands twitched and trembled secretively in his long sleeves, and his body seemed thinner underneath his clothes, which hung more awkwardly on him than before._

_Bobby turned the radio off. "We know you've been busy."_

"_So busy you forgot to comb your hair this morning," Dean said, leaning on one of the posts that framed the porch steps. "I know angels don't need sleep, but you should really look into it."_

"_Sam, how are you?" Castiel asked, ignoring Dean's jibe at his appearance._

_Sam leaned on the fence that ran the length of the little porch, clutching the wood with white knuckles. "I'm peachy," he replied, and his eyes were dark and narrowed. "No thanks to you."_

"_I offered my help, and that offer has stood ever since."_

"_Kiss my ass."_

_Castiel shook his head sadly. "Still so proud." He looked up at Dean. "Even as we speak, hundreds of thousands of people are flocking to the church to renew their faith and give thanks for the miracles I have bestowed on them. Why do you three oppose me?"_

_Dean's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why do you care?" He stepped slowly down from the porch. "What do you want with us, man?"_

_Castiel opened his mouth, but no words came. He seemed taken aback by the question. As Dean came mercilessly closer he took a small, involuntary step back, his eyes blinking rapidly as if he were struggling to keep them focused on Dean._

"_Souls eating you up inside, wearing you down?" Dean asked. "Starting to wonder if getting on that bucking bull wasn't such a good idea after all? Starting to realise that you'll end up trampled underfoot?" He got all the way up in Castiel's face. "Monster souls are still monstrous, Cas. So what does that make you?" There was the most minute tremble in his voice._

_Castiel might have noticed it if he had not been emotionally preoccupied._

"_You still refuse to admit that I was right?" he said, drawing himself up to his full height, which was still not as tall as Dean. "I've made the world a better place! War, pollution, poverty, famine! I've tackled them all, in only a month! Think of what I could do in a year, in ten years! I can create paradise on earth, without having to murder or destroy! All I ask is that you have faith in me!"_

"_Have faith in you?" Sam laughed from the porch. "You want us to worship you!"_

"_God must be feared! He must be above his followers, or they would demand that he obey their flawed desires!"_

_Dean shook his head. "You're not God, Cas."_

_Sam came down to join them then, followed by Bobby. "You say you've tackled war, pollution, poverty, famine. How? You've destroyed weapons manufacturing plants, leaving people without jobs and countries with half their income. You've stopped traffic to stop pollution, keeping people from going to work or seeing their families! People wake up poor overnight because you decided their fortunes should belong to someone else! The world is in chaos because of you!"_

"_You humans have dug yourself into a hole so deep it's going to take some drastic changes to pull you out. You weren't willing to take those steps yourselves. In the end you'll see what I've done is for the better." Castiel looked from Sam to Bobby to Dean, frustration creeping into his tone. "There will be alternative methods of transportation, of distributing wealth and resources. This is temporary!"_

_Dean's reply was a brutal refusal. "You'll give us back our free will as soon as you're done deciding everything for us."_

_Castiel's eyes widened in confusion and surprise._

_Bobby crossed his arms over his chest. "Let's see, we've got peace, but no reconciliation, nature falling apart because of all the sudden changes it's going through, and no more say over our own lives. Sounds more like Hell than Paradise to me."_

_Castiel shuddered as if to cast off the unpleasant accusations. "I was hoping you would understand, but it's clear that you're decided on being unreasonable." He stepped back. "I have been understanding long enough. You'll be safe in Heaven until I have finished my work here."_

_His hands began to glow._

"_Don't do this, Cas," Dean said, and anyone might have said that he was strangely calm for the circumstances. He slid his hands into his back pockets, seemingly casually._

"_I do what I must," Castiel replied, raising his hands._

"_So do I."_

_Dean moved suddenly forward, pulling his hands from his pockets with such speed that Sam and Bobby hardly saw the weapon he had drawn from underneath his shirt. One hand grasped Castiel's wrist, and with the other he thrust the long, thin knife into the angel's chest._

_The light flickered and died, but from around the intricately carved hilt of the knife, new light began to flow like blood. Castiel staggered on his feet and looked wide-eyed at Dean._

"_Did you know I had this?" Dean whispered, showing emotion for the first time in the form of regret. Castiel's knees buckled, and Dean followed him down, keeping one hand clenched protectively around the handle of the weapon. Castiel's hands groped stiffly and uselessly at Dean's, but his eyes were glued to Dean's face. He breathed in shallow gasps._

_Sam and Bobby looked on, frozen by surprise._

"_Dean, what is that?" Sam asked breathlessly._

"_It's silver," Dean replied, though he seemed to be speaking to Castiel more than to Sam._

_Castiel jerked and shuddered, more light pouring from his chest. Something dimmed in his eyes, and he looked, for a moment, very small and afraid._

_... I have to leave you here. I realise what an asshole move that is, but I have to go. You see, if I don't intervene now, my son will die, and probably take a substantial piece of the planet with him. He gave Sam, Dean and Bobby a month to come around. I gave him the same. And the month is up. But though you might never know all that happened next, don't worry; as Deus Ex Machina go, I'm a pretty solid one, and I don't intend to let it end here._

_Thank you, all of you who have taken this journey with me. Despite everything, I will miss this life._

* * *

><p>A hand closed around Dean's shoulder, and at once his limbs seemed to lose their strength, so that he could put up no resistance, but let go of the knife and fell back when he was gently pulled away from Castiel.<p>

Surprised and confused, Dean looked up.

Something about Chuck Shurley was so profoundly changed that Dean wasn't sure at first who he was looking at.

"Ch-Chuck?" he said, testing the name, looking for a confirmation or a denial.

The being standing before them was almost luminous. Gone was the dirty bathrobe, the shifty, uncertain eyes and the hunched shoulders. He wore a blue shirt over clean jeans, his body was posed with calm confidence, and he was smiling gently.

"Hi, guys."

Chuck knelt down next to Castiel. "Poor Castiel," he said in a tone that was deeper than Dean had ever heard him use. "Where did you stumble?"

The angel looked uncomprehendingly up at the prophet.

Chuck placed a gentle hand around the wound, the other on the knife, and in one smooth movement he pulled the weapon out and covered the wound with his ready hand. Beneath it the light seemed to hiss and boil as if angry at being contained. But it was contained.

"How are you –?" Dean's question died on his lips as Chuck turned unfathomable eyes on him. The whole sky seemed reflected in those eyes.

"Don't worry, Dean. I'll take it from here."

On the ground, Castiel was moving his bloodless lips, trying to speak. "Fa ... Father?"

Chuck's smile deepened a little. And then they were both gone.

"What?" Sam said. "Chuck ... What? Chuck–What?"

"So that was Chuck?" Bobby asked. "Nice to finally meet the guy. You never told me he was secretly the Almighty."

"Chuck is God?" Sam said disbelievingly.

"And when were you planning to tell us about the knife?" Bobby asked Dean sternly. "When did you come up with that as a weapon?"

But Dean was staring sightlessly at the place where Castiel had lain bleeding just a few moments ago.

Until Bobby grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him to his feet. The old hunter dragged his two shell-shocked wards into the house, taking the radio with him. Perhaps, at his age, he simply wasn't as impressionable. He dumped Sam and Dean on the couch and turned on the TV. And in front of it they remained, as the hours ticked by, waiting for some kind of change. But none came. There were no more miracles, but neither did anything revert back to normal. Sam and Dean remained mute, as if they couldn't find the will to rouse themselves from their stupor. Eventually they fell asleep, Sam with his head on the armrest and Dean sprawled half on top of his big little brother. In the absence of their desperate mission they were back on normal fuel, and they had both run out of that weeks ago. Whether out of sheer exhaustion or by some benign influence, they slept deeply and without dreams.

For the next five days they simply waited, but only one change presented itself; cars ran again. The invisible force that had been keeping them stationary had, apparently, let go. But normal traffic did not resume at once, partly due to lingering chaos, partly due to some seeming unwillingness in people to turn the key and startle someone by the roar of the engine. The world was at a standstill, holding its breath while it waited for the outcome of a struggle it had no knowledge of other than an instinctual chill.

Sam and Bobby spent hours discussing Chuck. If he really was God, how could he have been involved all this time and not done more to help them? How could Dean's necklace not have picked up on his presence? But if he wasn't God, where had he come from so suddenly, and how had he stopped Castiel's "bleeding" with only a touch? What was going on in Heaven now? Dean didn't join in these discussions. From sunrise to sunset he hid away among the wrecks in Bobby's yard, taking them apart for salvaging or fixing them up for selling, burying himself in mindless work and falling exhausted into bed every night. The Impala stood untouched, but he did sometimes go and lie down in the back seat, like a child seeking a loving embrace. She could make him feel safe, for short periods of time.

The boys being used to life on the road, and having nothing concrete to keep them at Bobby's anymore, it didn't take long before they both began to climb the walls, and Bobby, being used to living alone, found himself increasingly short of patience with them. On the fifth day, he dragged Dean in from the yard by the scruff of his neck and pushed him down in a chair by the kitchen table where Sam was eating his breakfast.

"Here," Bobby said and slammed three newspapers down in front of Dean. "Get the hell out of my house and do something useful before you annoy me to death."

Dean picked up the first paper reluctantly. "A case?" he asked.

"Yep. Have fun."

They packed and were on the road within the hour, in one of Bobby's cars.

There was something comforting about putting on the suit and tie and rattling off the familiar lies again, badges in their pockets and guns hidden in their belts. Something comforting even in examining the bloody remains of victim number three. They were back, they were needed again, and if he didn't allow himself to think too much, Dean could pretend that the Apocalypse had never nearly happened. It was just him and his little brother against the supernatural.

On the third day of their investigation they split up to go after separate leads. Dean was the first to return to the motel room, and he spent some time cleaning his weapons while he waited for Sam. Outside, the sun was sinking towards green hills, and the motel's parking lot was empty in the waning light.

Then there was a knock on the door. This was unexpected enough to make Dean take his handgun when he went to answer. He put the gun in his belt, and leaned in close to look through the peephole. What he saw alarmed him enough to make him immediately yank the door open.

"Dean-o! Didja miss me?"

Despite being prepared, it took Dean a second to process that the man standing in the doorway was the Archangel Gabriel. With a small, anxious, be-winged child in his arms. A head of unruly dark hair was buried in the crook of Gabriel's neck and two pale, chubby arms were clinging to him. The rest of the creature was bundled up in what looked like a white sheet, which had been given a long, crooked cut in the back to release two black wings, no bigger than a raven's.

"How are you back?" Dean demanded roughly, even while his eyes strayed back to the child. He was a little too disturbed to express the joy he, surprisingly enough, actually felt at seeing Gabriel again.

The angel waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Through the power of magic. The messenger is back, baby, and he has a message and a parcel to deliver." He hefted the child in his arms for emphasis.

"What is it?" Dean asked, although "who" might have been a more polite question.

Gabriel turned his head to nuzzle the child's curls affectionately. "You're gonna have to come out sometime, little bro. Dean wants to say hello."

"A baby angel?" Dean said incredulously, although he really should have guessed that already.

At last, the child peaked out from its hiding place, turning two remarkably blue eyes on Dean.

"CAS?"

The face immediately disappeared back into Gabriel's neck, and Castiel's wings fluttered in agitation.

Dean backed away from the doorway. Gabriel's expression softened, his impish grin disappearing. "You're just a master of deduction, aren't you?" he said, but his tone took the fun out of the line.

"WHY IS CAS A BABY?" Dean yelled, disbelief turning up the volume of his voice.

Gabriel put a protective hand on Castiel's back. "Calm down," he said irritably. "He's not a baby; he's a toddler." He gave his little brother a quick, measuring look. "Two, almost three years old, I think."

"WHY IS CAS A BABY?"

"Yes, Dean, because if you ram your head against that wall enough times, it will eventually break." Gabriel dropped his head in exasperation. "Look, I'll explain everything, just –" He followed Dean into the room and managed to separate himself from a clinging, unwilling Castiel, holding the child out to Dean. "Hold him for a sec, will ya?"

He all but dumped the child in Dean's arms, and Dean had to scramble not to drop him. He managed to get one arm underneath him and the other around him. Castiel weighed surprisingly little. _Like a bird_, Dean thought. _All hollow bones and feathers_. But he was kicking and squirming to get back to Gabriel, and he might be light, but he was also strong.

"Thank you," Gabriel said and stretched his arms out luxuriously, completely ignoring how Castiel was trying to escape from Dean. "I haven't flown in a long time, so I'm a little stiff." He rubbed his neck and sighed. "Anyway! We're really grateful to you guys. It's so kind of you to help us out."

"What?" Dean managed to ask, leaning back to avoid Castiel's now furiously beating wings.

"I mean we're gonna be absolutely swamped with work, and we've been given so little time, we need all the hands we can get, so it's really good of you to take this for us."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Dean said loudly just as one of Castiel's wings slapped the side of his head hard.

Gabriel laughed. "Why, you and Sam volunteering to babysit Cas, of course!"

Dean's eyebrows shot up on his forehead. "What?"

"Don't feed him after midnight," Gabriel said with a grin. And then he disappeared. Castiel froze in Dean's arms and looked around frantically.

"Hey!" Dean looked around. He let a few seconds pass. "HEY! You asshole, get back here!"

And suddenly Gabriel was standing in front of him again. "Good luck," he said, winking, and disappeared a second time, accompanied by the sound of feather's fluttering.

Gabriel's final disappearance made Castiel wail in misery and pitch his weight forward as if he could follow his brother somehow.

"Woah!" Dean struggled not to drop the squirming angel, fingers digging harshly into his soft body through the thin shirt. "Cas, stop it!" He pulled a still howling Castiel back against his chest and managed to splay one hand protectively over his torso to keep him from throwing himself forward again. Castiel beat at his hands and arms with tiny fists, and one free wing flapped frantically against Dean's face while the other fought to escape from where it was trapped between their bodies.

"Will you calm down?" Dean yelled, and Castiel froze in shock and fear, curling around Dean's hand and breathing in harsh little pants. Dean could feel the angel's heart beating hard against his fingertips.

"Hey," he murmured, feeling shocked and strung out. "Hey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He stood there helplessly, in the middle of the room, at a loss for what to do. Eventually, he put Castiel down on the nearest bed, but let go of him only reluctantly. Castiel sat paralyzed for a moment before crawling stiffly up to the head of the bed where he wrapped his arms around a pillow and huddled, hiding his face.

"What the hell were they thinking?" Dean mumbled. He dragged up a chair and fell down on it. Then he felt the gun still stuck in his belt. He pulled it out, unloaded it and stretched back to put it on the table.

What Dean had initially taken for a sheet covering Castiel was actually a shirt, presumably Jimmy's. It looked more like a tent on Cas now. The sleeves were rolled up to release his hands, which were currently buried in the pillow. His hair was a mess and his cheeks and neck were red from exertion.

"Hey, Cas?"

He made his voice soft, but nonetheless the angel immediately made an attempt at crawling deeper into the pillow.

"Do you remember me?"

After a long moment, Castiel stole a glance at Dean over his shoulder, and his eyes were more alive with emotion than Dean had ever seen them, even in that painful time before the souls had corrupted him.

"What's my name, Castiel?" Dean asked, leaning forward on the chair. "You know it, come on."

"Dean," Castiel said, but in two voices at once, one human and child-like, the other vibrating on a discordant frequency.

"Is your daddy in Heaven?"

Castiel nodded.

"And your brothers and sisters?"

More nodding.

So Gabriel was not the only angel who had been brought back. Had Chuck resurrected them? How many of them? Surely not Zachariah. Dean really hoped God had not resurrected Zachariah.

Castiel's wings were folded around him as if he was trying to comfort himself. They were sleek and of a glossy black. Despite all the monsters and creatures Dean had seen in his life, his eyes could not seem to get used to the sight of a pair of wings behaving so naturally on the back of a human.

"Did your daddy want you to be here with me?" Dean asked further. Gabriel had given him a big fat load of nothing as far as information went, so he'd have to hunt for it where he could find it.

Castiel didn't reply, but bit his bottom lip and blinked fast as if the question upset him.

Dean cleared his throat and came up with a new one quickly. "Gabriel brought you here. Will he come back?"

_Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry._

A nod.

"Soon?"

A shrug.

Dean exhaled in a rush. He got up from the chair, went to his bag and pulled out a can of beer. He imagined this was what plucking your eyebrows felt like: painfully slow-going with minimal rewards and tears waiting to sprout with the first wrong move.

He went back to the chair with his liquid courage. "Cas?" he began, watching his fingers opening the can with a too-practiced move. "Do you remember Crowley?"

When no sound came, he looked up. Castiel was watching him fearfully, like he dreaded where this was going.

"You do remember," Dean concluded, his eyes widening a little. "All of it?"

Castiel looked away.

"Purgatory, Raphael, Sam's soul, all of it?"

Castiel flushed red and buried his face in the pillow, his wings shuddering. He reached behind him and gripped the nearest wing, pulling at it as if to punish himself.

Dean stood up slowly. He felt like he should go over there, but to comfort or confront? Castiel remembered, but did he understand? In what way had he been reduced to a child; merely the body or also the mind?

"Cas, how old are you?"

"Two!" Castiel yelled into the pillow, as if he was honour bound to answer all these stupid questions, but refused to like it.

Dean eased back on his heels. No confrontation then. The memories of an adult life in the mind of a child. All his mistakes and crimes and all the shame, but not the faculties to fully comprehend it all or to defend himself. What the hell were they thinking?

Just then, Sam came home. "Find anything?" he asked as he closed the door behind him. He hadn't looked around the room as he entered.

"Sort of," Dean replied and inclined his head towards the beds.

Sam's eyes widened as he caught sight of Castiel.

The angel, on his side, whimpered in panic and crawled under the duvet to hide.

Dean scratched the back of his head. "Gabriel's back. He ... left Cas here."

Sam looked from the shivering bump on the bed to Dean and back again. There was a moment of tense silence. Then he walked over to the other bed, grabbed his bag off the floor and marched out without looking back.

"What—? Sam!" Dean put the can down and ran after him, stopped himself in the doorway and looked back indecisively, but Castiel didn't look like he planned to go anywhere, so Dean risked following his brother outside, carefully closing the door behind him. If the angel could teleport away, he already would have.

Sam was walking with determined strides towards the car. Dean caught up with him and put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him around.

"Hey! Where the hell are you going?"

Sam's expression was so cold that for a moment Dean had an uncomfortable flashback to the soulless days. "I get it, Dean. Gabriel came, saw, conquered and left before you could get a word in. I don't blame you for that. But he doesn't win this time. No way."

"What, so we're just going to leave Cas here? They turned him into a child, Sam; he's helpless!"

Sam rolled his eyes and smiled condescendingly. "Don't be naive, Dean. They're watching him and us right now, waiting to see what we'll do. If we leave, they'll pick him up again."

Frustration wormed itself through Dean, and he didn't even know why. Who was he fighting, really?

"Yeah, they will, and then they'll dump him on whatever doorstep we pay to own tonight. Gabriel's a stubborn son of a bitch, Sam; he won't give up."

Sam's lips pulled back from his clenched teeth. He looked around for an outlet before growling in defeat. "Agh! Doesn't it bother you that they're manipulating us again? Again!"

Pity and understanding softened Dean's frustration. "Sure. I'm pissed, Sam, same as you! But this isn't ..." His eyes strayed back to their motel room door. Had Castiel come out from his hiding place yet? Was he wondering where they had gone? Was he scared to be alone?

"I don't care," Sam said darkly. "I'm done, with Heaven, with the angels, with Castiel. I'm done." And he resumed walking towards the car.

"He reminds me of you," Dean said at his back.

Sam stopped. He turned around with a long sigh.

Dean pushed the words out around an uncooperative tongue. "You weren't much older than that when Dad left us alone for the first time. I sat up all night because I didn't dare take my eyes off you for a moment. My life revolved around looking after you, but you don't need me anymore."

"And now there's another big-eyed kid crying out for your love and protection," Sam said brutally. "Your life has purpose again, whoop-de-doo. This is exactly the reaction the angels were hoping you would have! They tailored this situation for you, Dean!"

Dean opened his mouth to protest, realised that it was probably true, and changed what he had meant to say. "Okay, but that's not why I'm sharing. Remember what Cas said to me a month ago? He said I gave him free will. I feel like ... like I was already raising a kid all over again, and because I didn't teach him right, he went and fucked up the world. I'm responsible, Sam! But I don't want to be responsible alone."

Sam let his head fall back with another furious, suffering sigh. Then he looked at the ground for a moment, clearly thinking it over. "No," he said finally. "I'm done being Hell's bitch, I won't be Heaven's. They've got God now; and if he was any kind of true God he would stop fucking with us and leave us alone." He glanced up at the sky as if he hoped that Chuck had heard him.

Dean closed the space between them and placed himself between his little brother and the car. He held his hands up in a placating gesture.

"We've still got a case. We can't leave that or more people will die. How about you be stake-out-guy at the golf course tonight? I'll stay here and be research-guy for once."

"And babysitter-guy," Sam added, crossing his arms over his chest. "This is pathetic, Dean. When are you going to stop bending over for Heaven?"

Dean looked his brother in the eyes and saw that Sam was angry and tired. And it was awesome, because negative emotions were so much better than no emotions at all.

"Not today."

Sam's expression softened, either because he found it in him to understand where Dean was coming from, or because he was too tired to keep fighting. "Fine. Let's eat first, though."

"Oh yeah, I'm starving. Go get us something." He clapped Sam on the shoulder and walked quickly back to the motel room.

In the time Dean had been gone, Castiel had migrated underneath the bed. He was mainly visible because his wings were quivering, drawing the eyes to the dark space between the hanging covers and the floor.

Dean was fully prepared to simply sit down and wait until the little guy felt like emerging, but that idea was quickly abandoned when he had closed the door behind him and the click of the lock died away, revealing another sound to his ears.

Castiel was crying.

Dean crossed the room slowly so as not to startle him, and knelt down next to the bed. "Hey, you okay?" He gave it a moment, but Cas seemed to be crying with that unabashed wholeheartedness that children do, and was so either unable or unwilling to respond.

Fully aware that this might end badly, Dean reached under the bed, past a whole lot of fluttery feathers, before finding a heaving body. He curled a hand around it and pulled until he could reach out with both hands and lift Castiel out of his cave.

Castiel reacted by blindly lashing out. His foot caught Dean in the stomach, and if Dean hadn't been so used to taking a beating while trying to stay with a target, he would have dropped him. He was going to have so many bruises tomorrow. He rose, still awkwardly clutching Castiel, and deposited both himself and the angel on the bed, immediately rearranging his hold on Cas so that he could lift him up again and hold him properly against his chest. Cas squirmed a bit but the convulsive sobs kept him too busy to do any more violence.

"It's okay, it's okay," Dean soothed, rubbing circles on Castiel's lower back and between his wings. With one hand he fumbled behind him until he could raise a pillow against the headboard and settle back against it.

Castiel wept into Dean's shoulder, his hands clutching at Dean's shirt and his wings trembling. Dean continued to soothe him as best he could, watching the agitated feathers with an abstract eye. Eventually he tried, partly out of curiosity and a little bit out of annoyance, to lift a hand and let one wing brush his fingers.

Castiel made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a hiccup, and both wings were quickly flattened against his back. It had the added effect of making the sobs less frequent, as curiosity and another emotion Dean couldn't identify seemed to take over for the desperate fear.

In this way they remained for some time, Castiel a warm, jarringly light weight against Dean's chest, Dean humming tunelessly to help the angel calm down.

By the time Sam came back, Cas had fallen asleep. Dean couldn't tell exactly when it had happened, but from one moment to the next he seemed to have drifted off. His emotions had spent themselves, and probably left him more than a little tired.

Sam was smart enough to knock softly, and Dean was obliged to put Cas down to go open the door, but the angel didn't wake, or move at all in fact, but lay sprawled on his back on the duvet where Dean placed him, his eyes puffy from crying, but his expression calm, his lips parted slightly on quiet breaths. He looked, for lack of a less obvious description, angelic.

Dean tiptoed to the door and opened it, putting a finger to his lips to indicate silence before letting Sam come inside.

Sam put the food on the table, and Dean dived in, as quietly as the plastic bags allowed, because he was really starving. Having discovered his burger, he wasted no time in unwrapping it and taking a bite, chewing with relish. Then he looked up and noticed Sam standing next to the bed, looking down at Castiel with a thoughtful expression.

Dean's first impulse was an irrational urge to go get between them, to protect Castiel. He took another bite of the burger instead and chewed stubbornly. His gut feeling was beginning to really agree with Sam that Heaven had designed this situation to allow Cas to get under his skin again.

"You gonna eat or what?" he said, pathetically trying to draw Sam away from the bed.

Sam seemed to drag his eyes away from the sleeping angel with some difficulty.

Dean grimaced. Was he, Dean Winchester, really going to roll over for those sanctimonious bastards now? He had refused Michael while his arm was being twisted out of its socket in so many proverbial ways, and now when the world wasn't even hanging in the balance, he was going to let them use him?

Sam came over to the table and pulled out his chicken salad.

Dean forced himself to keep his eyes away from the bed, away from the trap seemingly set to snare him specifically.

"Dean?" Sam said questioningly.

Dean made a hasty decision and looked up at Sam. "Can we talk?"

Sam's expression was full of significance that Dean couldn't decipher. Usually, this meant that Sam knew something about Dean that Dean didn't know about himself. This was never a good thing.

But in the end Sam nodded, and led the way outside.

The sun had gone down by now, and the stars were coming out. Dean breathed deeply of the warm summer air and didn't feel at all fortified. With every step he felt, more than ever, that Castiel was his responsibility, but Sam had been right; it was time Castiel was reconciled with his family. They should be the ones to put him back on his feet.

No one was dying, it was just a question of the road to take to a certain goal. The only thing Dean should be considering was what he wanted and what Sam wanted. Okay then.

"We can summon an angel," Dean said.

Sam lifted an eyebrow, probably at the abrupt beginning, but waited for Dean to continue.

"Gabriel didn't stick around long enough to do more than be fucking annoying, but from what he said and what I got out of Cas, I think Chuck has brought back at least some of the angels," Dean babbled on. "So we can summon someone, hand over Cas and hightail. I still say they'll just dump him right back in our laps, but it's worth a shot."

Sam looked at him doubtfully. "I agree," he said slowly, though his expression remained sharply questioning. "And I say that they _won't_ dump him back in our laps because it would be cruel to make Cas feel that unwanted."

Dean's heart stumbled. Unwanted? The word caused a dull sort of pain to strike his ribcage from the inside like a hammer.

"But is this what you want?" Sam asked. "Have you changed your mind?"

Dean looked incredulously at his brother. "It's what you want!" he said loudly. "Have _you_ changed your mind?"

He wished Sam wouldn't look at him so ... intently. Jesus!

"I still think it's the best solution," Sam said diplomatically. "For everyone."

"Great! And I agree that right now, Cas is better off with his family," Dean said while thinking of Castiel's brothers and sisters and how they really neither understood nor seemed to care about him.

Sam crossed his arms over his chest, his forehead creased thoughtfully. "Yeah." He breathed in slowly and released the air again as if putting down a weight. "Then ... Once we've wrapped up the case we can go get the materials for the spell."

Dean nodded once, decisively. "Awesome. Can we eat now?"

Over dinner, Dean gave Sam the details of Gabriel's visit, and relayed the information he had gotten from Cas.

"If he was only a two-year-old physically," he said in a low voice, "he wouldn't have answered "two" when I asked him how old he is. He would have said older."

Sam was chewing his salad like a big, sceptical rabbit. "But if he's a child with a child's mind, how does he remember everything? How does he process and interpret the memories?"

Dean shrugged. "How does he weigh less than a bag of rock salt yet pack a punch like a grown man? He's an angel. Angels are weird."

Sam was looking at the bed again, where Cas lay on his back still, mercifully dead to the world. Mercifully dead to the hideous wallpaper and horrendous bedcovers of this crappy motel room.

"He's ashamed," Sam said, stating a fact and by doing so returning to an earlier point in their quiet conversation.

Dean picked at his fries, suddenly not so hungry anymore. "That's what it seemed like to me. The wings give him away, but the rest of him is pretty damn expressive too now."

"Kids are more honest with their feelings than adults," Sam said, unnecessarily.

"Um, yeah. Because they have no concept of social embarrassment."

Sam turned back to Dean with the sudden shadow of a grin. "This coming from you?"

"Shut up and eat your salad."

Sam left again as soon as they were done eating. They had intended to keep a vigil together at the local golf course that night. All three murders had taken place there, and they wanted to be on site in case the perpetrator returned, but now Dean would have to stay behind with Cas. Dean made Sam promise not to engage the thing without him, and watched his little brother go with an uncomfortable knot in his stomach. He had said earlier that Sam didn't need him anymore, and he meant it, but only as far as hunting went. Since The Great Wall of Sam had come down, Sam had been unstable to say the least, sleeping little because of constant nightmares, and carrying the painful memories with him through the day. It had been easier when they were living at Bobby's, but now that they were on the road again, Dean had been careful to watch his little brother for any signs of fatigue or lingering horror.

But that was the strange thing; there had been no nightmares, no sudden headaches or horrific memories triggered by a sound or a smell, nothing at all, in fact, since their final confrontation with Cas. Sam had slept like a baby every since. Dean suspected and hoped that Chuck had done something to help Sam, but until he could be absolutely sure, he didn't dare let Sam too far out of his sight.

So not going with him tonight was a difficult decision for Dean.

To keep himself busy, he pulled out Sam's laptop and did some digging in the web-based local newspaper archive. Every now and then his eyes would stray to Castiel's sleeping form on the bed. In the white light from the ceiling lamp, the angel looked pale and ethereal, but the huge, white shirt made the image human. It seemed strange to Dean. Before, the vessel had made Cas seem human, while the otherworldly part of him had shone through in his gestures and in his heavy gaze. Just like his emotions were expressed more clearly now, so, seemingly, his angelic nature had risen closer to the surface.

Sam checked in by phone every hour, but had nothing to report. Unable to focus on his research, Dean turned on the TV, keeping it on mute, but somehow he found himself abandoning Dr. Sexy to simply watch Castiel some more. Was it the flickering light from the television creating shadows out of the angel's lashes, or did he still have dark circles under his eyes?

In the end, Dean gave up, turned off the TV again and lay down next to Castiel, careful not to touch his wings. The angel was so small now, so terribly fragile. And really adorable. Dean was glad Sam wasn't there right then, because he was feeling decidedly unmanly.

But how did this make anything right? The tiny thing breathing peacefully next to Dean was also the man who had torn down Sam's mental wall, subjecting him to all the horrors of his stay in Hell and almost killing him. Nothing could possibly justify that action to Dean. This tiny thing with the wounded, blue eyes had struck up a partnership with the King of Hell, denounced Dean, declared himself a god and thrown the world into chaos.

So what the hell was God thinking? The Winchesters had hoped against hope that he would take some responsibility, and it seemed he had, but this? Did he really expect them to forgive Castiel just because he was cute now? But the answer appeared hot on the heels of the question. He had, and he was right to; the furious and possibly violent conversation Dean had planned to have with Castiel once the angel was restored wasn't going to happen now.

"How could you betray us, Cas? What were you thinking?" he whispered.

Castiel's brows contracted minutely, and he sighed restlessly as if his mood were affected by Dean's, or even as if he had heard him.

Dean was torn between a need to smooth that tiny, troubled brow on the one hand, and shake Cas awake and demand answers from him on the other. He compromised by getting up from the bed and going back to the computer. He could do some more digging, make absolutely sure that there hadn't been any violent deaths in the area around the golf course. When the case came to Bobby's attention there had been three victims already, all young, all beaten to a pulp with some blunt instrument by something of more than human strength.

Half an hour later, Dean struck gold. He called Sam up immediately. "I've found our man, Sammy! Edgar Nielsen, bludgeoned to death with his own golf clubs by a gang of teenagers. The anniversary of his death is two days from now."

"It fits," Sam agreed from the other end of the line.

"He's in the local cemetery."

"I'll drop by and say hello."

"Be careful."

"Yes, mom."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

Dean hung up, grinning and shaking his head.

Castiel was awake.

The angel was sitting up in bed, looking at Dean with a painfully familiar, steady, but unreadable expression.

"Sleep well?" Dean asked tiredly.

Castiel just tilted his head to the side curiously, and Dean had to turn his face away, shutting his eyes tight. It was too much. He was so angry with those impossibly blue eyes, but it hurt so much to maintain that anger.

"_You're not my family, Dean. I have no family."_

Hearing that, and seeing the absolute conviction in those cold eyes and that empty smile, had hurt Dean. He had not been aware then that Castiel had the power to hurt him so deeply.

And when he now dared to look back at Castiel, who was so small on Dean's big bed, the very thing, the recognizable thing, the thing that was _Castiel_, the thing that Dean was angry at, was also such a blessed relief to see, because at least it meant he was himself again.

Dean shut the lid of the laptop, rose from his chair and stretched. He noticed that the motion brought only some small signs of apprehension to the angel's expression.

"So ... Sam's out digging up bones. What are we going to do?"

Castiel had his hands clasped in his lap, his toes were sticking out from under the shirt and his hair was messier than ever. He looked idly around the room until he noticed the TV. He pointed at it.

"Yeah." Dean pressed his lips together and nodded. "About the only damn thing you can get up to around here."

He was surprised when Castiel frowned at him, his cheeks puffing up angrily.

"What? What did I do?" He thought back. "Oh!" He put his hands on his hips. "You know I can get a lot more blasphemous than that. Just because your daddy's back and everything's sunshine and rainbows in Heaven doesn't mean you get to go all preachy on me."

Castiel turned his face away from Dean.

"I see. That's how it is." Dean hid a smile by going over to turn the TV on. Then he grabbed the remote control and came over to the bed.

"Well? Do I get to sit next to you?" he asked. "That's my bed, you know."

Castiel looked around like that hadn't occurred to him. Then he looked up at Dean with slow consideration, but Dean hadn't planned to actually wait for his answer, so he quickly lifted the toddler up, sitting down against the headboard and placing Cas back down next to him.

"Ha, you're tiny. I can do whatever I want," Dean said smugly. "I think I prefer you this way."

Dean had never seen a two-year-old look so outraged before. Grinning more widely now, he made himself comfortable against the headboard and started flipping through the channels. Next to him, Castiel was climbing to his feet, grabbing on to Dean's t-shirt for balance. Dean looked up at him. "What, you got something to say, pipsqueak?"

Castiel placed a hand on Dean's forehead, there was a familiar jolt low in his stomach and then he was hovering in empty air in the space between the two beds. He landed on his ass on the floor and looked up to see Castiel looking down at him with a small, smug smile.

"Oh, it is on!" Dean declared and launched himself after the angel, who squealed in terror and then howled with laughter as Dean began to tickle him mercilessly.

When Sam returned to the motel room, hours later, tired and sweaty but satisfied with the closure of the case, he found the TV still on. Dean lay on the bed, fully clothed, with Castiel tucked against his side. They were both asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's notes: **And the plot thickens. Though you might not notice.

Chapter 3 will be up on Saturday, I think.

**Chapter specific summary: **_"So many people have houses, but not all those houses are homes."_

* * *

><p>Dean was, surprisingly, the first one to wake up that morning. Sam was snoring away in the next bed and Castiel was curled up next to Dean with his wings wrapped around himself. Dean decided he might as well get breakfast for everyone, and inched his way carefully out of bed. Sam had thrown a blanket over them the night before, and Dean made sure Castiel was snug in it before heading out. Using the reflection in the window of the car, he straightened his rumpled clothes and made his hair lie flat.<p>

The morning was chill and dewy, but bright. Dean drove slowly through town with the driver's side window rolled down, simply enjoying the fresh air and the hum of the car beneath him, though he felt keenly how it wasn't _his _car. As soon as possible he was going back to Bobby's to fix the Impala. Hunting monsters without his baby just didn't feel right.

He parked outside his and Sam's chosen diner. There were only a couple of old guys occupying the tables at this hour, but the girl behind the counter looked awake and as happy with the beautiful morning as Dean was. He ordered pancakes to go and flirted easily with her while he waited.

He arrived back at the motel about an hour after he had left. He opened the door carefully and quietly, but needn't have bothered; Sam was sitting at the table, still dressed in the t-shirt and boxers he had slept in, and looking sleepy and grumpy. The sun was coming in hard through the windows now, painting the floor white and revealing whirling dust in the air. It would be a hot day.

"I got breakfast," Dean announced.

"Sounds good," Sam said without enthusiasm.

Dean looked around. "Where's Cas?"

"In the bathroom, hiding."

Dean put the plastic bags with the food down on the table and raised an eyebrow. "Okay. Why's he hiding?"

"I don't know. I woke up, he woke up, he took one look at me and teleported into the bathroom; he's been there ever since."

"Guess he's still scared. " Dean frowned. "He'll need time to warm up to us."

Sam raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but he made no comment. "He seemed fine with you last night," he said instead, tone normal.

"That's because he's _had_ time with me."

Sam smiled flatly. "And of course you have your," he raised his hands to make air quotes, "profound bond."

Dean's stomach tightened uncomfortably at those words.

He cleared his throat, crossed quickly to the bathroom door and knocked. "Cas? You in there?" There was some shuffling from within, which was the only answer Dean had expected. "It's time to come out. There's pancakes if you want them, and I really need to pee."

A handful of seconds ticked by, and then the door was opened just a little bit. Castiel stood, contrite and hesitant, in the gap.

Dean raised an eyebrow at him. "Well?"

The angel let the door swing open enough for him to slide outside. He remained standing next to the doorway, fingers plucking idly at the tip of one wing, eyes on the floor.

Dean sighed. "I'll be quick," he said, to calm Cas or reassure Sam or just for something to say in the laden silence.

He washed the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes, brushed his teeth and relieved himself, all the while listening for sounds from without, but there were none. When he emerged from the bathroom, Castiel had climbed up on Dean's bed. He and Sam were not looking at each other.

"So ..." Dean said, struggling to breathe in the suddenly heavy air. "I'm starving."

Sam rose from his chair. "You go ahead and eat. I'll take a shower. I feel like there's grave dirt coming out of my ears." He got soap and a towel from his bag and locked the bathroom door behind him.

Dean began to unpack the food, trying to ignore the weight of Castiel's eyes on his back. In the background came the sound of running water. Dean sat down with his pancakes, but couldn't eat while the angel was staring at him like that. He grabbed the chair closest to him and pulled it out.

"Come here, will you?"

Castiel hopped down from the bed, padded over and climbed up on the chair. It was still impossibly strange to see his wings responding to his movements and moods like a natural part of his body, fluttering helpfully when he was heaving himself up and then folding themselves neatly behind him when he sat down.

"You hungry?" Dean asked.

Castiel screwed his face up in concentration, as if he was searching himself for a trace of hunger. Then he shrugged. Apparently he couldn't tell.

"Well, you need sleep, so that might mean you need food too. I say we stay on the safe side."

Dean speared a small piece of pancake with his fork, dipped it in syrup and held it out for the angel. Castiel pulled it from the fork and put it in his mouth, along with most of his fingers. Then he folded his hands in his lap and chewed thoughtfully for a while. Dean watched him.

Finally, the angel swallowed and looked happily at Dean. "Nummy."

"Yeah, you like that," Dean said, grinning. "Want more?"

Castiel smacked his lips and nodded seriously.

So Dean gave him one of the plastic forks the waitress had sent with him, cut a pancake into smaller pieces and placed the food in front of the angel in a wrapper.

And then they ate. Unfortunately, Cas was at once a little too short for the table and chair, and somewhat reduced in motoring skills, which didn't exactly make for graceful eating. Dean very tactfully didn't make any of the snarky comments he really, really wanted to make.

A few minutes later, Sam came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. While he got dressed, he was, Dean noticed, the subject of several thoughtful, furtive glances from Castiel.

Sam sat down at the table, seemingly intent on ignoring Cas as much as he could, but if that was his intention, it was shot to hell the moment his eyes first strayed to the angel. Castiel's face and most of his front was covered in syrup. He was chewing very seriously and wielded his fork like a tiny, plastic angel blade.

Sam snorted, tried to contain himself and failed, falling into helpless laughter.

Castiel looked up at first the one and then the other Winchester in turn before settling his gaze on Sam.

"Nummy," he said explanatorily.

The laughter was contagious, and it took the brothers a moment before they could resume breakfast. There was something nervous and uncontrollable about the hilarity, but the laughter was a relief all the same, and it broke the tension for the rest of the meal.

Once breakfast was over, however, they realised that they had a problem: Jimmy's shirt was now ruined. Cas needed clothes.

"We could give him another shirt," Dean suggested from where he was lying on his bed. "It's just for today."

Sam was clearing the table, but now he stopped. He looked down at Castiel with lowered eyebrows and searching eyes. Dean held his breath. He knew his little brother; something had happened.

"Actually ... I think we should let Cas stay for a while."

Castiel looked up, surprised.

Dean sat up. "Great! What made you change your mind?" Seriously, what the hell had made him change his mind?

Sam looked suddenly chagrined. "Yeah, um ... Gabriel."

"Seriously?"

Sam resumed clearing the table. "He stopped by the golf course last night. You were right about him; he wasn't going to let us give Cas back."

Dean watched his little brother carefully. "I thought you said it was time we stopped being Heaven's bitches."

Sam shrugged, conspicuously casual. "Gabriel was persuasive. I suppose I got a new perspective on things."

Somehow, Dean found that hard to believe, not least of all because Sam had been entirely justified in his rage against Heaven. The Winchesters had been used and abused, treated like dirt; Heaven owed them on a biblical scale, they shouldn't have to put up with any more crap. What new perspective could possibly be put on that? And Dean wasn't even counting the resentment Sam must still be feeling towards Castiel himself.

So he opened his mouth to tell his little brother to spill the rest of the beans, but stopped himself when Sam gave Dean a warning look and then looked meaningfully down at Castiel.

Castiel was clearly curious, but apparently there was something to be said that he shouldn't hear. Dean decided he could wait.

"Alright, so what's the plan then?" he said to change the subject.

Castiel looked annoyed.

"We'll take him to Bobby's," Sam replied, dumping the empty food containers in the trash can.

"What?"

"It's the only stable home we have."

A frighteningly domestic future loomed, alien and murky, before Dean's inner eye. He quickly put his mind to more immediate and practical matters.

"Cas still needs clothes."

"We'll go shopping."

"Yeah, but we can't take him to the store naked."

Dean could tell the moment his little brother found the solution. He could also tell, by the crease between his eyes, that the solution was problematic.

"You got an idea?"

Sam nodded slowly. "I saw a couple check in to the motel last night. Backpackers. They had a kid with them."

"Awesome. Problem solved," Dean said, but then he happened to look over at Castiel. The angel was beginning to look suspicious. He had stood up on the chair and wrapped his hands around the beams of its back, narrowed eyes moving between Sam and Dean. Dean swallowed. "All we have to do is ask them nicely if they'll lend us some clothes. Since it's an emergency and all," he said in an exaggerated tone.

Sam raised a confused eyebrow at him before noticing Castiel's expression. "Yeah!" he agreed readily. "How about I do that while you help Cas clean up?"

"Great idea!" Dean said and rose, grabbing Castiel under the arms and whisking him away to the bathroom. "Just remember to be polite, Sam," he called over his shoulder.

"Always am," Sam replied.

Dean shut the bathroom door, turned around and was confronted with Castiel's sharp eyes boring into him. He felt himself beginning to sweat under the scrutiny and quickly moved past the angel to pull away the shower curtain. "Well, you heard the sasquatch. We need to get you cleaned up. There's more syrup on you than there was on the pancakes."

A little later, Dean left the steaming bathroom to get a towel out of his bag, and found Sam back already and in the process of packing his things.

"Did you find anything?" Dean asked.

Sam went oddly quiet, his face carefully blank. "Yes."

Dean gave him a moment to elaborate, but he clearly had no intention to. "Okay, then. We'll be right out."

Back in the bathroom, he wrapped a dripping Castiel in the towel before carrying him outside and putting him down on a bed.

"Alrighty. Sam," he said, hands on his hips. "Let's see them."

Sam picked up something from his own bed and tossed it to Dean. It was a pair of jeans, just about the right size for a vertically challenged angel.

Castiel wiped himself vigorously dry with the towel before squirming free from its damp cocoon. He shook his wings out and dragged his fingers through the feathers, showing signs of frustration at the light film of steam that had settled on them in the bathroom. It seemed that wet wings did not agree with him.

Dean sat down, lifted Cas easily down on the floor and helped him step into the pants. They were a little big, but since the waistband was stretchy they weren't about to fall down at least.

Dean looked up expectantly for the next item, only to freeze in horror. Sam had unfolded a pink t-shirt with _Angel_ written in glittery silver letters across the front.

"What the hell is that?" Dean said, his voice strangled.

"This," Sam replied, "is the only thing I could find. Honest to ... Chuck, I guess."

Castiel held out his hands for the t-shirt, but Dean slapped them down again. "You're not wearing that; it's gay." He glared at Sam. "So the kid was a girl; that can't seriously have been her only t-shirt."

Sam's expression grew flat. "Dean, I searched the room. This was it." He handed the thing down to Castiel.

Dean rose from the bed, stepping carefully over the little angel. "Then he can wear something of ours. It doesn't matter as long as he has pants on."

"Dean."

Dean faced his brother slowly. He knew that tone. It meant that Sam was about to deliver an argument that Dean didn't want to hear.

"What?"

"It would help explain the wings to people," Sam said with a reluctant grimace. They both looked down at Castiel, who looked over his shoulder at his wings, folding one of them out experimentally before tucking it back against its twin.

Dean glared at Sam, who pulled up his shoulders as if to say _I'm just giving you the facts. Not my fault._

"I feel like we've been had," Dean said later as they walked towards the car, Sam with their bags and Dean with Castiel on his arm, in the pink t-shirt with two slits in the back through which his wings had been painstakingly pulled.

Sam hummed in agreement. "You know, when I think about it, their room smelled like candy."

Castiel was too small for the seatbelt to be effective, so it was decided that Dean would sit in the back with him to keep him safe, while Sam drove.

The drive to Bobby's would take them close to five hours. They'd been on the road for about two when a sign informed them that there was a mall coming up. Sam suggested they take a break to eat and look for clothes and other things that Cas was going to need.

Dean was busy picking on Castiel, who had retained his angelic ability to sit perfectly still and do nothing for hours, but found this ability difficult to practise while Dean was blowing down his neck and tickling the base of his wings at unpredictable intervals. Somehow, he had yet to lose his temper, another ability that must surely be angelic in nature. But Sam did manage to catch Dean's attention long enough for them to make a plan, and then, once they had parked the car in the lot outside the mall, Castiel got his revenge by zapping Dean out of the car so that he landed on his ass again.

As they headed inside, Castiel demanded to be allowed to walk on his own feet, and this was conceded him if he promised not to let go of Dean's hand.

As the three of them walked through the crowded mall, Dean kept his head down and his shoulders raised, and tried not to meet anyone's eyes. Eventually, Sam seemed to feel it was necessary to elbow Dean in the side. "Dean, you're embarrassing us."

"Sam, you know what they're thinking!" Dean replied in a fierce whisper.

Sam raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "What? That we're happily married? That Cas is our love child?"

"Yes," Dean said through gritted teeth. "And the t-shirt isn't helping." He pointed an accusing finger down at Castiel, who wore his _Angel_ t-shirt proudly and carelessly, as if it didn't even matter that it was pink and glittery.

Sam breathed deeply. "I feel almost nostalgic."

Below them, Castiel had caught sight of a store that professed to have "Everything your child needs". He tugged Dean's hand and pointed. "Look!" he said, startling both his babysitters.

"Okay, we'll go in there first," Sam said, "but you have to keep your wings still, okay? Can't let people know you're an actual angel."

Castiel's wings were in tune with his excitement and were flapping happily. It was drawing stares.

"What are you so excited about anyway?" Dean asked a little while later as they strolled leisurely down aisles containing socks and underwear. "Do you like being two years old?"

Castiel didn't reply, but his eyes fluttered up to meet Dean's with sudden solemnity. If an answer, it was a negative one, but Dean couldn't even guess at the reasons in that gaze.

It was lucky that they had grabbed a shopping cart from outside the store, because "everything your child needs" turned out to be a lot more than Sam and Dean had first thought. Tooth paste, sun block, cups and plates and cutlery for clumsy hands and small mouths, and even toys. In the case of the toys, the brothers argued for a while over whether Cas was actually a child or not, until Dean crouched down and just asked Castiel whether he would like the Lego set, and when Castiel nodded, Dean put it in the cart with a smug grin. Sam got his own back when they found the literature section and Castiel was insulted by the very insinuation that he would be interested in _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_, for all that the helpful shop lady told them it was a kids' classic.

In aisle seven they found the t-shirts. There was a wall for boys and a wall for girls, easily distinguished by the quantities of pink on the one, and the many dinosaur-motifs on the other.

"How many do we need?" Sam wondered while his eyes roamed the five climbing rows hung with hundreds of t-shirts.

"No idea," Dean replied. "See anything you like, Cas?"

Castiel turned confused eyes on Dean.

"What? You'll be the one wearing them; you do get to pick your own clothes."

Castiel turned back to the wall with wide-eyed wonder.

"Seriously, what's with you?" Dean asked quietly. He looked to Sam for some sort of insight, but Sam just shook his head, watching Castiel with an intrigued expression. Dean wasn't entirely convinced that Sam didn't have some theory about Castiel's illogical awe at everything around him, but apparently he wasn't ready to share yet. Normally, Dean wasn't exactly an advocate for sharing, but this trend of Sam's to keep things to himself was beginning to worry him.

"Well, come on," Dean said and lifted Cas up to give him a better overview. "Let's see what they have." He walked slowly from one end of the wall to the other, stopping every couple of steps to let Castiel pull out and look at the t-shirts he liked. Three, four, five ... Eventually seven t-shirts had been added to the cart. They were almost at the end of the wall.

"Awesome! They have Batman!" Dean grinned as he made an opening between two t-shirts on a middle row and pulled out a black t-shirt with the yellow-and-black Batman logo.

But on Dean's arm, Castiel had stiffened.

"What? Don't you like Batman?" Dean asked, trying to catch the angel's eyes, but they were averted. Cas was looking tensely over Dean's shoulder, away from the wall. Even his wings were stiff and splayed awkwardly.

"Dean," Sam said, getting his brother's attention, and touched the brightly coloured t-shirt that had been revealed when the Batman one had been removed.

"_It is a little absurd, though. Superman going to the dark side. I'm still just Castiel."_

"Oh," Dean replied and hastily hung Batman back on the row so that it once more covered the blue, red and yellow t-shirt that made Dean's insides feel sharp and empty. He cleared his throat. "I think we have enough now, don't you?"

Sam nodded and grabbed the cart. Castiel came back to life then, squirming to be put down, and Dean let him go, trying not to feel the resentment that was suddenly rising again like a restless spirit unable to move on. While protecting Castiel from Sam's justified fury, he had almost forgotten his own reasons to feel the same way, and he really couldn't afford to give those reasons the time of day now, when he had all but promised Cas to take care of him. The reckoning would have to come later. It would be a very different Castiel that Dean would eventually vent his rage on. He would be much taller, for one thing.

Vice-like, solid silence tied them together as they walked down the next aisle. Sam had withdrawn into himself and Castiel was walking as far from them as the space allowed, as if he would have liked to snap the cord that tied him to the Winchesters and make a run for it.

They rounded a corner and were spotted by one of the shop assistants; a man wearing the red employee shirt and a name tag. He put down the items he was shelving and intercepted them quickly.

"I'm sorry, Sirs, but your child should really wear shoes while he's in the shop."

Castiel looked down at his feet as if he was only now realising that they were in fact bare. Dean wondered how the guy could care about bare feet when the kid in question had a pair of frickin' wings sticking out of his back.

Sam shrugged restlessly. "Okay, where do you keep your shoes?"

The man pointed to the place and they headed that way, given tremulous hope by their new purpose.

As they neared the racks of itty bitty sneakers and flip flops and wellingtons, Dean pulled ahead of the other two. "Oh yeah, check it out!" He pulled a pair of white sneakers from the rack and held them up. "Blinking shoes!" He hit them against the wall, which caused red lights to blink all around the bottom.

Sam put his hands on his hips. "Dean, that's childish."

But Castiel's eyes had gone wide as saucers.

"You want these?" Dean asked, waving the shoes in front of the angel's nose.

Castiel looked from the shoes to Dean's face with awe, and between his excitement and Sam's bitchy sense of propriety, the tension was draining.

"You can have them if you like."

"Have you even looked at the price tag?" Sam asked, although with less enthusiasm, as it was obvious that he was outmatched two to one, or one and a half to one, as it were.

"Sammy, awesome has no price tag," Dean said, giving the shoes to Castiel, who put his arms around them lovingly.

As they moved on, Dean secretly drew a relieved, shaky breath. He felt like an emotional yo-yo, but at least he was currently on the up-swing.

Castiel's wings were attracting stares from everyone in the shop, but Cas was good at keeping them still as long as he concentrated. Twice Sam and Dean had to deal with mothers who were wondering where they could get a pair for their own child. They got by both times by saying that the t-shirt had been bought online, but that they couldn't remember where exactly, and that the wings had been an opening sale offer only. Castiel helped by keeping his back turned towards Sam and Dean so that the curious women couldn't look too closely at how the wings were "strapped on".

But mostly they were helped by that very human tendency to simply not accept things that we judge to be impossible. No one who looked at Castiel saw what was right in front of them, blinded by their own common sense.

The trio only had one close call. Castiel had strayed towards a shelf full of stuffed toys, away from Sam and Dean, who kept him in their peripheral vision just in case, but were otherwise occupied with picking out soap, arguing about whether or not it was necessary.

Sam was pulling down bottles and reading the information on the back, throwing out arguments without even looking at Dean. "Look, maybe angels are naturally clean, but you saw him this morning. We're going to need this, Dean."

Dean scuffed his shoes against the white floor tiles. "Alright, but you know I'll be the one who'll have to sit with him."

Sam raised an eyebrow doubtfully. "Sit with him?"

"To make sure he doesn't drown. Or swallow the soap. Or fall and hit his head."

Sam blinked disbelievingly at Dean. "When did your mother's instinct kick in?"

"Shut up," Dean replied and grabbed a rubber duck off the shelf, tossing it into the shopping cart.

They were interrupted suddenly by a pained, angry squeal from Castiel, and turned around to see him forcefully push away a little blonde girl who had grabbed his wings with both hands. The Winchesters hurried over as Cas wrapped one arm around the girl and put a hand to her forehead to exorcise her.

"Woah, woah, Cas that's not okay!" Dean grabbed the angel and Sam grabbed the girl, and they pulled the two combatants apart.

Castiel was making a growling, oddly discordant sound in the back of his throat that made the hair on Dean's neck stand on end. "Stop that," he said with a shiver, tightening his hands warningly on the angel's waist.

"What are you doing? Let go of my daughter!"

Sam let go of the girl as if burned and she ran to meet her mother, who was young and beautiful, with violently pink hair and tattoos crawling up her neck from under her top. The girl clung to her mother's leg and the two of them turned identical, blue, steely-eyed glares on Sam, Dean and Castiel.

"I'm sorry," Sam said quickly, giving Dean a look that said _I'll get this, you get gone_. "They had a little scuffle, but I don't think anyone got hurt."

Dean pulled Castiel with him back to their shopping cart, carefully shielding him from the woman's sight to keep her from asking about the wings. She looked just angry enough not to let this go. They took the shopping cart around a corner where they couldn't be seen.

Castiel's wings were in a disarray. He tried to shake them into shape, but Dean stopped him quickly. "Just because the shoppers aren't watching doesn't mean big brother isn't." He indicated the cameras in the ceiling. "Turn around, let me look at it." It really was a mess. The girl's grip had been purposeful. Castiel's shoulders twitched; he was clearly uncomfortable. Dean deliberated for a moment. "I'm gonna see if I can sort this mess out. Is that okay?"

The angel looked over his shoulder quickly before lowering his eyes, eyelashes whipping up and down rapidly. Dean was hit by a wave of déjà-vu. He remembered an abandoned house in the pouring rain, a jug of holy oil, a trip to a den of iniquity and a face-off with an Archangel. And Castiel blushing.

But finally, Cas gave Dean a quick nod. Dean took a moment to contemplate his angle of attack. A few of the larger feathers had been bent out of place. He straightened them carefully.

Sam found them then. "Phew. Give me a vampire or a demon any day, but protective mothers?" He surveyed Castiel's wings and gave a low whistle. "She did a number on you."

Dean carefully combed his fingers over the worst patches. Then he began to untwist and straighten more individual feathers, unconsciously bending closer, intent upon the delicate work. When he finally looked up, Castiel was holding on to the shopping cart and breathing in quick huffs.

Dean pulled his hands away quickly. "Sorry. You're okay now." He rose, but must have been done so too fast because his vision blurred and became obscured by a strange glow. He held on to the shopping cart and waited for the feeling to pass. Probably just a dizzy-spell. Both Sam and Castiel were looking at him, and he waved them off with a quick smile, even as the sensation faded.

"I don't think we'll risk any more grab-happy girls, alright?" Dean said and swept Castiel up without giving him time to protest, but no protests were forthcoming. Instead Castiel put his head happily against Dean's shoulder and curled one small hand in the material of his jacket. The warmth of the weightless body in his arms was like a balm, and Dean found himself breathing easier for no reason at all.

"I think we're pretty much done here," Sam said, surveying the contents of the cart. "We have socks, shoes, underwear, pants, t-shirts, and ... lots and lots of stuff. Can we afford this?"

Dean freed one hand from holding Cas so that he could rummage around in his jacket pocket. "No, we're broke, but ..." he opened his wallet and held it up to read the name on the credit card in the window-pocket. "Adelbert Appelhof should be able to cover it."

"Adelbert Appelhof?" Sam echoed disbelievingly.

Dean shrugged. "You try coming up with something good after your fifth priest, your fourteenth FBI agent and your forty-third credit card."

They made it to the register with a newfound respect for what women could endure and even enjoy of shopping.

"Look Samwise," Dean said and pointed at the exit. "The gates of Mordor. We made it."

Dean watched as the woman behind the register folded their items and put them in a growing pile, and felt like something was missing. He looked down at Castiel, who was once more on the ground, and whose eyes were growing bigger for every item added to the pile. For all the new mannerisms belonging to the two-year-old vessel, there was still something undeniably unchanged about him. But he _was_ missing something ... something very _Castiel_, if that made any sense.

"Ah!" Dean turned to the cashier. "Do you have trench coats?"

She was coloured, middle-aged, overweight and unimpressed. "We don't sell clothes for men," she drawled.

"I know, I meant for him," Dean clarified, pointing down at Castiel.

The woman leaned over the counter and blinked down at the angel, who cocked his head to the side and blinked back. She looked at his wings and then up at Dean, who kept his face carefully blank.

She straightened up with a little shake of the head and resumed scanning and piling their items with the languidness of boredom. "I'm sorry, sir, but we don't carry them at all."

Dean made a disappointed grimace down at Cas. "It was worth a shot. Sorry, buddy."

They had to eat something before moving on, but were burdened by so many bags that they decided to take a detour to the car first. Once there they opened one of the packs of socks. Castiel sat in the open doorway to the back seat and Dean showed him how to slide the socks on. Meanwhile, Sam was pulling the new shoes out of the box. He threw the box away, and Dean helped Cas push his feet into the shoes and showed him how to fasten the Velcro bindings.

Castiel jumped around next to the car to make the red lights blink.

Everything else went into the trunk. Socks and t-shirts and pants and underwear, all miniature, covering up an arsenal of weapons.

After slamming the trunk, Sam came around the car, and he and Dean watched Cas fawn over the shoes. Finally, Sam crossed his arms over his chest and said quietly, "You've never had clothes of your own before, have you Cas? You've never had anything of your own before."

Cas looked up in surprise, and his eyes betrayed him then, for in them the Winchesters could count the many thousands of years that he had walked an Earth he had no claim to, no bond to, and yet loved.

"It's okay, Cas," Dean said quietly, running a hand over the angel's hair. "They're all yours."

"Thank you," Castiel said.

They went back inside to eat. Dean had a cheeseburger. Sam had a salad. Castiel had fries with ketchup, but managed to limit the spread of the condiment to the general area of his face, which meant they could wipe him clean with a wet napkin afterwards.

But the ride to Bobby's house was quiet. Sam agreed to play Led Zeppelin if he could keep the volume on low. Dean stared out of the window, humming the tunes he knew by heart under his breath. Castiel was kicking the seat in front of him in the hopes of making his shoes blink some more.

It was getting dark by the time the car rolled in through the gates of Singer Salvage Yard, and inside the car the silence had become tense. By unspoken agreement, the boys didn't get their bags or anything else out of the car, but walked empty-handed towards the front porch. They didn't want to seem like they were expecting anything. Castiel had to jog to keep up with their long strides. In the growing twilight, Dean tried to read the angel's body language to see if he was apprehensive or … well, anything, but for once since he became a child, he was completely unreadable. There was no way to tell if he was expecting a warm or a cold welcome.

But when Sam knocked on the door, Dean felt Castiel shuffle a little behind him, and a small fist grabbed on to the back of Dean's jeans at the knee. He had realistic expectations then.

There was some muffled cursing and metallic clanging sounds before footsteps announced Bobby's approach and the door swung open. Heat spilled out of the house along with the smell of food. Bobby was wearing an old apron and looked harassed.

"Since when do you two idjits need to knock?" he said irritably.

"Are you baking?" Dean asked incredulously and immediately wished that he could take it back when Bobby scowled at him.

"Yeah, I'm baking. And if you want any you should wipe that grin off your face."

Dean's grin had more to do with nervousness than anything, but he did his best to smother it.

Bobby turned in the doorway. "Come inside. I've got a soufflé that needs my loving care and attention."

Sam looked over his shoulder at Dean and took a demonstrative step to the side. Dean raised an eyebrow at him and Sam mouthed _Your responsibility_. The bastard.

"Um, Bobby?" Dean called, steeling himself. He looked down for a moment and took courage in how much Castiel had come to trust him again in such a short time. Or maybe the angel was just clinging to Dean because he could tell that Sam, despite his change of heart, wasn't entirely happy to have him around.

Regardless, Dean had made his decision, and he would not let Cas down.

"What?" Bobby replied, reappearing in the doorway.

"We didn't come alone."

Bobby raised an eyebrow. He looked around. Then he looked down and saw Castiel. For a long moment he just stared at him.

"Well that explains a lot." He looked up at Sam and Dean. "Are you coming in or not?" Once more he disappeared into the interior of the house.

Sometimes, when your expectations are suddenly and radically defied, it takes a while for your mind to catch up. The little trio remained on the porch for almost a full minute, staring at the doorway and trying to process that not only was Bobby not the least bit surprised to see Castiel, but he didn't seem to mind that he was back.

Eventually, Sam turned his head to look at Dean. "O ... kay?"

Dean looked down at Castiel. "Did you do something to him?"

Castiel shook his head. He looked as confused as the Winchesters.

"So ... should we go inside?" Sam asked.

"I think it's safe," Dean said, and stepped hesitantly across the threshold.

Bobby was in the kitchen, turning the knobs of his old oven. Three bottles of beer were lined up on the counter.

"Took you long enough," he said when they entered, without looking up. Once satisfied with the temperature, he rose, removed his apron and grabbed one of the bottles, moving sedately off to his living room slash study.

Dean grabbed the second bottle, opened it and took a long and somewhat desperate swallow.

Sam, meanwhile, moved to the doorway between the two rooms. "Bobby?"

"Yep?"

"Why aren't you surprised?"

"Or angry?" Dean added, sauntering up to stand next to his little brother.

Bobby had sat down in one of the two chairs that stood in front of the desk. "Let's just say I had some warning. Only I didn't know I'd be housing two and a half men."

"Warning? Who warned you?" Dean asked while looking around for Cas, whom he had lost track of for a moment. The angel was sitting on the counter with the mysteriously opened third beer in his hands.

"Cas!"

Dean hurried back, separated alcohol and minor, lifted the protesting angel up and carried him away from temptation.

"Sam, go pick up your bottle," he said as he passed his brother.

Dean sat down on the couch with his beer in one hand and Castiel somewhat awkwardly cuddled under his arm.

"Are you thirsty?" he asked the angel.

Castiel reached out a hopeful hand for Dean's beer, which Dean promptly pulled out of reach. "No, not that kind of thirsty. The age-appropriate kind of thirsty. Why are you so determined to end up some kind of addict?"

"I have juice," Bobby said, a little too amusedly.

Castiel crossed his arms over his chest. "No juice."

"Okay then. Let me know if you change your mind."

Seeing that Castiel was getting huffy, Dean ignored him. It wouldn't do to let him think sulking could get him anywhere.

Sam came over, having fetched his beer, and sat down at the other end of the couch.

Offended at Dean's dismissal, Castiel squirmed free of his arm and climbed down to sit between the two brothers. His legs dangled over the side without reaching the floor even though the couch had been ridden low by age and use.

The only light in the room was the greying sunlight coming through the windows. It was peaceful somehow.

"You were telling us about how you knew we were coming ..." Sam said to Bobby.

"Oh, was I?" Bobby countered with a little smile, but he did eventually oblige. "I got a visit from upstairs. They asked me nicely if I would give you chuckleheads a roof to sleep under for a while. I said yes."

"Wow," Dean said. "That sounds ... like complete bullshit."

Bobby nodded. "And it's all you're getting. Now how did this happen?" he gestured towards Castiel.

"We got a visit too," Sam replied. "From Gabriel."

"And he dumped this little guy on us," Dean added, rapping his knuckles on top of Castiel's head. Castiel winced and frowned at Dean, rubbing his skull. Apparently he was more sensitive to pain now than he had been as an adult angel.

Bobby looked curiously at Cas. "Why a toddler? And why you two? You're not exactly parent material."

Sam bit his lip on a short laugh. "We wondered about that too, but Gabriel wasn't forthcoming."

Dean pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I think the angels are on cleanup duty either here or in Heaven or both, and until they're done, we're babysitting." He took a swig of his beer before putting the bottle down on the floor, where Castiel couldn't reach it. "Our second source of information isn't as talkative as he once was."

Castiel sat with his hands clasped between his knees and his eyes on his shoes.

Sam studied him. "Hey, Cas?"

The angel looked up.

"Can you tell us what happened after Chuck showed up?"

Castiel shook his head quickly and looked down at his feet again. Sam, Dean and Bobby exchanged glances.

Dean got off the couch and knelt down on the floor. He put a hand under Castiel's chin and made him look up. "Can't or won't?" he asked seriously.

Castiel didn't reply, but there was a plea in his eyes. He curled his fingers around Dean's, but didn't try to push his hand away. Dean didn't see Sam and Bobby exchange another, more significant glance over their heads.

"There's been enough secret-keeping, Cas, for all of us. I think we're entitled to some answers," Dean said, and he felt tired suddenly. For the past month he had suffered from headaches because of the constant tension in his body. This morning he had felt fine, but now the pains were threatening to come back.

Cas pushed Dean's hand away so he could shake his head in another refusal.

Dean sighed.

Sam leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "It's okay," he said quickly. "You don't have to. But maybe you could answer some other questions? Like, how many angels did Chuck bring back?"

Castiel looked up at Sam. He screwed his face up in concentration, tried to count on his fingers and ended up simply extending his hands out as far as they would go.

"Oh, that's ... that's a lot," Sam said, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips.

Dean fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Did he bring back all of them?" he asked.

Castiel nodded.

"All of them?" Bobby repeated incredulously. "What, so Michael's been pulled out of the cage?"

Another nod.

"What about ... Lucifer?" Sam said, swallowing in sudden apprehension. "Is he out?"

But this time Castiel shook his head. The three men released breaths they didn't know they'd been holding.

"Awesome," Dean said as he hoisted himself back onto the couch and leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling. Then a nasty thought occurred to him. "Wait ... That means Zachariah's back."

He looked down long enough to get a confirming nod before letting his head fall back again with a groan. "Dude, that's just not fair! Doesn't Chuck appreciate the trouble we went through to kill that bastard?"

Sam looked thoughtful. "It's not just Zachariah, but Uriel and Anna too, and ..." He glanced quickly at Castiel. "Balthazar."

Castiel dangled his feet so forcefully that the impact of his heels against the sofa caused the lights on his shoes to begin to blink.

Bobby raised an eyebrow. "Nice shoes," he commented.

Castiel smiled and leaned down to pet his footwear. But Dean saw how tremulous that smile was.

Since he had regained the use of his legs, Bobby had taken to sleeping in the master bedroom again, leaving Sam and Dean to alternate between the guest room and the couch in the living room. Now there was an additional person to make accommodations for, so the Winchesters wrestled an old mattress out of an upstairs closet and put it in the guest room next to the bed. Castiel would sleep wherever Dean slept, there was no question of anything else. From the car they hauled Sam's bag into the living room, and Dean's bag and all the shopping bags upstairs to the guest room. New sheets were put on the beds, and pillows and pillow cases and every other necessary thing was found, while Castiel dived into the shopping bags to explore his new possessions.

Once the preparations for bedtime were done, and Bobby had finished his business in the kitchen, they ended up back in the living room, nursing their second round of beers and talking quietly. Eventually, it became necessary to light lamps against the dark outside. Castiel lay on his stomach on the floor with his new crayons and sketch pad. He was deep in concentration, carefully applying the yellow crayon to a dinosaur.

It was Bobby who eventually looked at the clock and said, "Isn't it about time that Cas went to bed?"

Dean shrugged. "You sleepy, Cas?"

Castiel shook his head without looking up from his drawing.

Bobby rolled his eyes. "If he's two years old then he's two years old, Dean, angel or no. Put him to bed." But his good-naturedly grumpy tone was contradicted by his much more serious expression. Dean took the hint.

"Alright. Your house, your rules." He rose from the couch. "Come on, Cas. Grumpy says it's sleepy-time."

Castiel frowned up at him and shook his head.

"No?" Dean asked, before pursing his lips and nodding seriously. "Of course, you're busy. And normally I'd never disturb an artist at work, but you see, Picasso, that drawing will still be there in the morning."

Castiel turned back to his sketch pad and ignored Dean soundly.

So Dean took hold of the angel's ankles and lifted him into the air. Castiel squealed and his wings beat furiously.

"Okay, we're going to bed. Say goodnight to Sam and Bobby."

"Aaaah!" Castiel said as Dean carried him, still upside down, towards the staircase.

"Night, Castiel!" Sam said, waving.

"Goodnight," Bobby echoed.

Dean carried the angel up the stairs and into the guest room, where he dumped him on the mattress. "You undress while I find your pyjamas."

Castiel huffed, apparently brutally offended. Dean rummaged around in the shopping bags until he found the light blue pyjama pants and t-shirt they had bought that day. When he turned around again, Cas was still pouting, and still fully clothed.

Dean sat down next to him and pulled his shoes off. It brought on another cry of protest from Cas, more heartfelt this time, and Dean thought that maybe the angel was more tired than he seemed.

"Hey, don't worry, we'll put them here next to your pillow, and you can put them on first thing tomorrow morning." He placed the shoes down on the mattress.

Cas picked them up and put them down again, seemingly only to have some sort of final say. Dean didn't comment on it.

"Now to get you out of that t-shirt. And burn it."

Dean grasped the hem of the pink top and pulled it up, stopping when the wings came in the way. "Let's see." He helped Castiel slide his arms out, and managed to get the neckline over his head so that only the wings remained tangled up. "I'm just gonna ..." He pulled at the little cuts they had made in the t-shirt to widen them, and then he took a careful hold of one wing and slid the t-shirt off it. Castiel sat very still. The other wing followed.

Dean picked up the pyjama t-shirt before realising that this too would have to be opened in the back for the wings. He found a knife in his own bag and decided, instead of making two vertical cuts, he would make one long from shoulder to shoulder, the way Jimmy's shirt had been cut. It was more practical now that they didn't have to hide the authenticity of the wings from anyone.

He made the cut, knelt down in front of Cas again, and together they slid the t-shirt down Castiel's raised arms, before working his head through the opening. Finally, Dean slid the blue material the rest of the way down and released the wings. He reached for the pyjama pants, blinking as the lamplight seemed to invade his eyes for a moment. He shook his head, and when he turned back to Castiel his sight was normal again. Maybe he needed glasses.

They swapped the jeans for a pair of briefs and the pyjama pants.

"There. You're good." Dean moved off the mattress, crouching next to it. "So, head on the pillow. Time to sleep."

Castiel lay down on his back, wings splayed out, looking up at Dean with languid, heavy-lidded eyes. Dean pulled the duvet over him. "Good night, Cas."

He arrested himself in the last moment as he was about to lean down to kiss the angel's forehead, translating the tiny betraying movement into a dip that helped him stand. "We're just downstairs, so shout if you need anything, okay? Now try to sleep."

Castiel nodded. Dean turned off the lights and pulled the door closed until there was only a strip of light entering the room from the hallway. Then he walked downstairs.

"So," he said as he took his seat on the couch again. "Why did you want Cas out of the way?"

Bobby sighed and lowered his voice. "Because we need to talk. For one thing, we need to figure out what to do with our little miracle upstairs."

"Little miracle?" Dean repeated, wrinkling his nose.

"Well, what else would you call our unprecedented run of luck?" Bobby asked sarcastically. "The nuclear reactor is disarmed, shrunk to a manageable size and looks cute as a button to boot, with Big Daddy back home we probably don't have to worry about Michael or Zachariah ever coming down here for revenge or round two, and until Crowley finds out what's happened he'll stay cowering in Hell, thinking Cas is on his tail. A week ago, we were at rock bottom, and now all our problems are solved!"

Dean snorted. "Cause it's not like it was just finally our turn to be lucky, or like we earned this or anything."

Sam ran a hand through his hair. "There's a catch somewhere. Always is." Then he looked sharply at Bobby. "Now will you tell us who told you we were coming?"

Bobby looked towards the stares for a moment as if he feared that Cas might be listening. Then he turned back and nodded. "It was Chuck."

Dean's eyes widened. "Chuck was here?"

"Yesterday. I came into the kitchen and he was just standing there, hands in his pockets."

* * *

><p>"<em>Hello, Bobby."<em>

_It isn't every day God turns up in your kitchen. A lesser man might have panicked, screamed or fainted. Bobby Singer raised an eyebrow and said, "You think just because you're God you don't have to knock before you enter?"_

_Admittedly, his heart had skipped a beat, and there was perhaps the smallest tremor of nerves in his voice, but allowances must be made; no matter how many angels and demons you've tangled with, nothing can quite prepare you for your first tête-á-tête with God._

_Chuck Shurley ducked his head and laughed. "I … I'm sorry. I can still do that, if you want?" He took a questioning step towards the hallway, but Bobby held up his hands._

"_Nah, that's okay. Next time."_

_Chuck nodded. "Next time, I promise."_

"_It's nice to finally meet you, I guess," Bobby said, gesturing for God to take a chair at the kitchen table. "I've read your books."_

"_Oh, they're terrible," Chuck said, sitting down. "I'm an awful writer." He looked around restlessly for a moment before looking up at Bobby again. "Did you … Did you like them?"_

_Bobby crossed to the kitchen counter and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. "Well, it's not Hemingway, but as gospels go it's pretty compelling stuff." He got two glasses from an overhead cupboard and turned to Chuck with a questioning expression. "Does God drink?"_

_Chuck shook his head. "Not anymore. I'm trying to quit."_

"_Right. I think the boys mentioned something about that." Bobby poured some whiskey for himself and came to sit opposite God._

"_Speaking of the boys, that's why I came." Chuck leaned his elbows on the table and folded his hands on the tabletop._

_Bobby leaned back and tipped up the shade of his hat. "They in trouble?"_

"_Oh, no, not at all. They'll finish up the golf course case tonight and you'll have them back here safe and sound by tomorrow. And that's the thing." He hesitated. "I would have sent an angel, but while the kids are great at remembering my messages they don't always get the tone right on delivery, so I thought I'd come myself this time."_

_Bobby inclined his head. "I'm flattered. Now what's this about?"_

"_You know," Chuck said, looking around at the old kitchen. "It always makes me happy to see someone take a place that other people would call a lost cause, and make it into a home."_

"_Huh. Now I'm less flattered." Yes, the house had termites and was ready to fall down at the slightest provocation, but that was no excuse to insult it._

_Chuck's eyes widened. "I mean it as a compliment. I do." He released a breath that was heavy with cares. "So many people have houses, but not all those houses are homes." He settled his unfathomable eyes on Bobby. "Like I said, tomorrow, Sam and Dean will come back from their hunt. They will come here because, as Sam will say to Dean, it's the only stable home they have." He drew another careful breath. "And they need a stable home right now, because Castiel is with them."_

_Why did hanging out with Castiel make Sam and Dean need a stable home?_

_Why were Sam and Dean hanging out with Cas in the first place?_

"_That's why you're here? To ask me to let Cas stay?"_

_Chuck nodded solemnly._

_Bobby put his chin in his hand for a moment. Then he looked up. "Will you smite me if I refuse?"_

_The corner of Chuck's lips twitched on a grin. "No, I won't."_

_God rose slowly and wandered over to the kitchen counter to look out of the window. "I think … the real reason why I came here myself is … I wanted to talk to you." He turned to Bobby and there was something almost apologetic in his expression. "I'm kind of here to draw inspiration."_

_Bobby really had no idea where this was going anymore. "For another book?"_

"_No, not as a writer, but as a father." Chuck ducked his head. "I'm afraid I'm equally awful at both. I've let my kids down, and when you have almost seven billion kids, that's pretty bad." His eyes narrowed in determination. "I'm going to make it up to them, but it's going to be tough."_

"_Even for the Almighty?" Bobby asked, only gently teasing._

_Chuck's expression changed quickly into another one of those ready, but melancholy smiles. "Even for the Almighty. You know, I really like you, Bobby. You're my kid too. You all are." The smile faded again. "And that's kind of the problem, I've realised. I love every single one of my kids, and sometimes loving them means leaving them alone to try their wings, so to speak. Only it might turn out that they're not ready, and then I have to decide whether to let them learn from their own mistakes in time, or to step in so that nobody gets hurt."_

_From one moment to the next, a terrible strength began to radiate from Chuck. "I stepped in this time, but it will be the last," he said, and his voice was deep._

_Bobby thought he could smell the musty pages of the old Bible he kept in a desk drawer in the living room. The man standing before him had ordered a hail of fire to rain down over Egypt, and sent an Angel of Death to collect all the firstborn sons from their beds._

"_I gave my human children free will, so that they wouldn't need me like my angelic children do. I swore I would leave you to choose your own destinies, and I still believe that is what's best for you." With a sigh, the aura of power was gone, leaving behind a tired, grey man, who looked at Bobby with eyes like the sky. "It's just difficult to watch you fall over and over without being able to pick you up and set you down on your feet again."_

"_If you were going to step in, couldn't it have been a little earlier? We could really have used you on the Apocalypse," Bobby dared to say._

_Chuck grimaced."I know, I know. Hindsight is a bitch. But hey, the Apocalypse wasn't all bad," he said almost pleadingly. "Because of it, four angels found free will. That's four miracles."_

_Bobby raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn't give the Apocalypse itself too much credit. I think at least two of those miracles are down to Sam and Dean."_

"_My heroes," Chuck said, grinning. Then he pushed himself up so that he was no longer leaning on the counter. "I'd better get back to Heaven. They'll be missing me."_

_Bobby rose from his chair. "Well then, you'd better ask."_

"_Ask?"_

"_You never actually asked."_

"_Oh!" Chuck cleared his throat and composed himself. "Bobby, will you please open your home to my winged, wayward son until I can recall him to his post in Heaven?"_

_The word "can" seemed to occupy a meaningful place in that sentence, but there was no time to dig for more information; Bobby could already boast of having spent over ten minutes in private conversation with God, and that was ten minutes more than anyone else had ever gotten._

"_Honestly, I don't want to promise anything. I'll see what Sam and Dean have to say when they show up tomorrow, and I'll decide then."_

_Chuck didn't look the least bit surprised or annoyed._

"_Did you know I was going to say that?" Bobby asked._

_Chuck nodded. "Yep, and that's all I need. Thank you, Bobby. Oh, one last thing, could you maybe not tell Castiel that I asked? He's kind of angry at me right now and I don't want to make it worse."_

"_My lips are sealed."_

_Chuck looked around. "Do I have to leave through the door or can I just …" He made some vague, upward gestures with his hands._

"_By all means, flutter off," Bobby replied, and next he knew, he was alone in the kitchen. Bobby let his shaky legs collapse, falling back into the chair. __"Well, now I've done everything."_

* * *

><p>"Wow," Sam said.<p>

"Yeah, that about covers it," Bobby agreed.

Dean swallowed uncomfortably and looked at Sam before saying, "So why did you let us in?"

"I let you in so you could explain this to me!" Bobby almost shouted.

"Keep your voice down!" Dean hissed. "You'll wake Cas."

"I mean, I get that he's cute and all, but how can you two, who should be the last to let any of this slide, agree to babysit, without even an explanation of what's going on?"

"Damn it, Bobby, keep it down!"

Sam looked thoughtful, his hands folded under his chin. Dean gave him an angry glance, trying to solicit some kind of support, but Sam didn't seem to notice.

"We're not satisfied," Sam said to Bobby. "But Chuck has played it smart. I wondered at first why he would choose to turn Cas into a child. I mean, what was the point? And then we had breakfast this morning and ..." He looked up, from Bobby to Dean. "I just can't stay mad at that face. For so long I've thought of Cas and seen a monster in my head." Dean struggled against a shudder. "But now," Sam continued, one eyebrow raised in ironic awareness, "I see him sassing it up in his pretty, pink t-shirt."

"I ripped it to shreds," Dean added informatively.

"I thought you might have," Sam returned mock-seriously. Then he sighed. "Chuck is trying to make us all friends again by changing our perception of each other."

Bobby had raised a doubtful eyebrow, but Dean felt understanding dawning.

"We were enemies, now he's our baby. Chuck, you clever bastard."

Bobby shook his head. "And we're letting him get away with that?"

"For the moment," Sam replied. "All I know is that right now we can't do squat. We can't hold Cas responsible for his actions when he can't defend himself."

"Damn straight," Dean agreed. "We'll have to play the waiting game for a while."

"I don't like it," Bobby said, but his voice was calmer.

"Nobody likes it." Dean let his head fall forward and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Now if there's nothing else you two are dying to get off your chests, I have been on the longest shopping trip of my life; I need sleep. So I'm going to bed."

"Go on. We can talk tomorrow," Bobby said mercifully.

"We won't be far behind you," Sam said with a little half-smile.

They said goodnight, Dean saluted them both and headed up the stairs, taking care to avoid the creaky fifth step so as not to wake Castiel.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's notes:**Thank you so much to everyone who has left a review! You're awesome! :D

Once again all honour goes to my betas, Aevylonya, Corvus and Nenja, for making my crap readable.

Also, you all need to check out Nenja's illustrations because they are seriously adorable. And she'll be making more for the coming chapters.

**Chapter specific summary:** _You and Dean of all people have to be able to forgive him_.

**EDIT**: Chapter 4 will be posted on Saturday 22nd! There is no way I can work on it this week as both I and my beta have term papers to write. I'm sorry guys, I promise we'll be back on track on the 22nd.

* * *

><p>Sam and Bobby sat in silence until they could no longer hear Dean moving upstairs. Eventually there was only the sound of their breathing left. Sam closed his eyes and listened to it.<p>

"Well?" Bobby said. He had fixed shrewd eyes on Sam and looked expectant. "You've been sitting on something all night, something you didn't want your brother to hear. Gonna tell me what it is?"

Sam nodded. "It's not that I want to keep it from Dean—"

"Great," Bobby cut in. "Because he was right; there's been enough secret-keeping."

"I know." Sam folded his hands in front of him. "And I'll tell him, but there are parts he should hear and parts he probably shouldn't, you know?"

"I see." Bobby made himself comfortable in his chair. "Well, out with it. I'm all curious now."

It was easy for Sam to cast his mind back to last night. The sky over the golf course had been the same black as the one now draped like a veil over Bobby's house, and now, like then, Sam's head was crowded with thoughts that made the silence seem loud.

"I lied when I said Gabriel wasn't forthcoming. He was, just not to Dean."

He filled Bobby in on how he had ended up keeping watch on the green that night, full of questions and simmering rage.

"The first hour and a half was uneventful, but then all of a sudden, I wasn't alone in the car anymore ..."

* * *

><p>"<em>Didn't take you for a golf enthusiast, Sammy."<em>

_Sam started so badly that he almost hit his head on the ceiling._

"_Gabriel?"_

_The archangel's eyes shone with mirth in the moonlight, but there was something subdued about him, like he was more angel and less trickster than he had been the last time they saw him. He had one leg crossed over the other and sat more or less sideways on the seat._

"_Good to see you, kid. You've gotten taller."_

_Sam caught his breath, and once the surprise faded, irritation rose to the surface. "What do you want?" he asked angrily._

_Gabriel smiled beguilingly. "You're really pissy. Did Dean borrow your mascara again?"_

_Sam got out of the car. He didn't think he could actually escape Gabriel, but he needed room to move and the opportunity to turn his back on the angel if he needed to._

_But when Gabriel appeared next to him a moment later, there was nothing left of his teasing mood. "Don't send him back," he said quietly._

_It was, Sam knew, the sincere tone and his own readiness to respond to it that made him explode. He didn't want to be calmed or charmed or reasoned with, and this was the one time Gabriel chose to be serious._

"_I am so fucking sick of you people dumping your messes on us! You can go to Hell and take Cas with you! Why can't God take responsibility? Why does he have to be such a fucking disappointment?"_

"_I'm not asking this of you because God told me to, or even for my own sake," Gabriel said sternly. "This is for Castiel. You think you can't stand the sight of him right now, imagine how his siblings feel. He took God's name, Sam! Do you have any idea what that means upstairs? We're all on clean-up duty down here, no exceptions, no lunch breaks, no bonuses, and once we're done, Heaven's next, because our house looks like someone dropped a bomb on it, and you and I both know it's Michael and Raphael's fault, but my brothers and sisters don't get that, because in the end those two were loyalists and that's all that matters. They are much more inclined to blame Cas, who is in this mess because of you!"_

"_Not me," Sam growled. "Dean. I just happened to come in the same package. He does everything for Dean."_

"_Fuck that!" Gabriel returned fiercely. "So maybe he looks out for you because you're Dean's little brother. He still risked his life to get you out of Lucifer's box."_

"_And then he all but put me back in to keep _Dean_ out of the way of his Purgatory-scheme!"_

_Gabriel held up his hands like he needed to stem the tide of Sam's fury. "Hey, I'm not saying he's blameless—"_

"_Good! So what are you still doing here?" It gave Sam an intense sense of power to know that he was forcing Gabriel back._

"_What happened to forgiveness?" Gabriel's brows were sloping over soft, pleading eyes. "When Dad told me to take Cas to you, I was so relieved. He needed to be with you, with flawed human beings. Only you could understand him. Angels don't know what it means to make mistakes because we don't have free will. Among my brothers and sisters, Castiel is a freak, no different than a demon! But you and Dean of all people have to be able to forgive him!"_

"_HE HURT US MORE THAN HE HURT YOU!" Sam yelled. "So he killed a bunch of angels; big deal! It's not like death means much to you! You have no idea what he put me through, or how he betrayed Dean! We are the last people he should be with right now!"_

_Gabriel's shoulders fell. He turned away and looked up at the sky. "I don't get it," he mumbled, and not to Sam. He reminded Sam sharply of Castiel then, physically addressing his father. Perhaps it was a side effect of prolonged life in a vessel. "They're his family. If there is no redemption, why didn't you just let him go?"_

_Sam's anger was displaced by a sudden, unexplained chill. "What?"_

_Gabriel turned back uncertainly. "Look, I promise I will tell you guys everything, but not right now. I've already been away too long."_

"_You can't just leave after saying something like that!"_

_Gabriel sighed and looked around restlessly. Then, with sudden, frustrated determination, the archangel knelt down in front of Sam Winchester. _

"_Fine! Now I'm asking for me. Please take care of my little brother."_

_Sam backed away. "Man, get up. Seriously, you're freaking me out."_

"_Not until you promise," Gabriel said loudly. He looked like he wanted to cross his arms protectively over his chest. "He can't go home! I thought he had a second home with you, but if I was wrong, at least don't turn him out. For now."_

"_Alright, alright! He can stay." Sam shoved his hands into his pockets. "For now."_

"_Thank you." Gabriel rose to his feet and was gone in the same instant._

* * *

><p>Sam waited for Bobby's reaction, but the old man remained silent for a while after Sam had finished his story.<p>

"Well," the old man said finally. "That shed some light on your choice. I admit I was more surprised that _you_ would go along with this than your brother."

"I'm pretty sure Heaven was thinking the same," Sam replied. "They knew they could trust Cas to win Dean over on his own, but not me."

"But Gabriel got to you."

Sam rolled his shoulders and looked around. He was struggling with a mounting feeling of old guilt that made it hard to look Bobby in the eyes. "Twice in my life I've had to redeem myself after doing some pretty horrible stuff. I know what it's like to need forgiveness without being able to ask for it. So yeah, he got to me."

"Twice?" Bobby waited until Sam would look at him again. "You can't be blamed for what you did while you were soulless. You know that."

Sam didn't reply. If he agreed it would only ring hollow, and Bobby would pursue the topic, which Sam just couldn't take right now.

"I have another reason," he said to steer the subject back on course. "Why I agreed to let Cas stay."

"Oh?"

"Dean ... he lost Lisa, he'll never risk another woman like that. We're all he's got now. His only family. If he can have Cas back ... I'm willing to put up with pretty much anything if Dean can have his friend again."

"You think he and Cas could make something? After everything?"

Sam rubbed his eyes tiredly. It was time for bed. "I think Castiel loves Dean. I think no one has ever been to Dean what Cas is to him."

"They're in deep, I'll say that for them." Bobby grabbed his near-empty beer bottle and lifted it in a salute. "Here's to our luck, then. May it hold just a little longer." He drained the bottle and rose from his chair. "Lord knows Dean deserves some happiness."

And Castiel? What did he deserve?

"Bedtime?" Sam asked.

"Yep. I'm exhausted."

Sam smiled. "Me too."

Bobby picked up the empty bottles and moved them to the kitchen, while Sam spread a sheet over the sofa and threw his pillow and duvet on top of it.

"Hey, Bobby?" he said as the old hunter moved past him to the stairs. "Thanks for letting us stay."

"Course I'm letting you stay," Bobby replied immediately. "I'll just kick you out when you start getting on my nerves." He cleared his throat, seemingly a little embarrassed. "Truth is, you're not the only ones rolling over for Heaven. I could have told Chuck to go fuck himself, but I didn't."

"No one tells God to go fuck himself. Least of all to his face."

"In other terms, then. Point is, I didn't exactly put up a fight. When I woke up this morning, every measure we took to angel proof this place was gone, and it's not that I'm not grateful that the outside of my house in now squeaky clean, but again, I could have protested. Presumptuous bastards."

"I'm glad you didn't."

They said goodnight. Sam changed into his sleeping-wear before going upstairs to brush his teeth.

The couch was a little too short for Sam and not overly comfortable, but when his head hit the pillow a little later, he fell asleep almost immediately.

He awoke to pale sunlight falling through the living room windows. He blinked sleepily, while the light dissolved the last, confused images of his dream. It had not been a nightmare though, and Sam found himself sending a quiet, slightly embarrassed thought of thanks to (his much verbally abused) God, whom he held responsible for the recent absence of those dreams. The memories of Hell were still with him, but they no longer flashed like fire and knives through his mind when he least expected them to. They had a faded, almost muted quality to them, and even if it meant that Chuck had tampered with him somehow, Sam couldn't feel anything other than grateful. And hey, Chuck had totally owed him anyway.

Sam was usually an early riser, but it didn't feel like this was his normal get-up time. So why was he awake? He looked around, and through the open sliding doors to the kitchen he caught sight of Castiel at the table. The angel was looking back at him, wide-eyed as if he, through some sound or motion, had woken Sam up and was aware of it. He was on his knees on a chair, elbows on the table, sketch pad in front of him and black crayon in his hand.

Sam let the moment stretch on, taking time to examine his own feelings and testing the balance between his decision to move forward and the desire to linger and satisfy old wounds. There was a lot of anger in him, but Sam had spent most of his life suppressing anger, at his father, at his brother, and at the dark forces that had shaped his life. He had said he would go along with Dean on this, letting Castiel stay, and he intended to do his part to keep their interaction civil until the time came when something could be said about the betrayals and the crimes.

"G'morning." He lifted his hand in a short greeting. "What time is it?"

Castiel made no reply. Oh well.

Sam pushed the duvet off and heaved himself into a sitting position, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Then he rose and stretched.

Castiel returned to his drawing. The soft scratch of crayon on paper was the only sound in the house; Dean and Bobby must still be asleep. Sam went to relieve himself and wash for the day. When he returned he wandered into the kitchen, pulled a glass from a cupboard and a carton of orange juice from the fridge, leaned against the kitchen counter and drank slowly while contemplating the little artist at work.

Castiel was still in his clingy cotton pyjamas, and his hair was mussed from the pillow, but he looked as awake and alert as ever.

"What are you drawing?" Sam asked.

He wouldn't have known that he had startled Cas if not for the way his wings jerked. After a moment's hesitation, the angel turned the sketch pad towards Sam, who stepped up to the table to see.

He was looking at the roughly sketched outline of a building with a tall, pointed tower and a cross on top. "A church?"

Castiel nodded. Sam supposed it was natural enough. Little girls drew princesses, little boys drew monster trucks and apparently little angels drew churches.

"It's good."

The compliment didn't seem to have any effect. In fact, the way Castiel looked at him made Sam feel like he had missed the point somehow. Cas pulled the pad back and resumed working on it, and Sam went to a drawer to find bread to make toast.

"You hungry? Want me to make you anything? Toast, cereal, pancakes?"

Castiel shook his head without looking up again, so Sam left him alone. He ate breakfast at the table in silence, cleared away the dishes, put away his bedding and got dressed, and still Castiel was drawing. He had started on another piece of paper, but the motive was the same as before.

The morning was well underway now and Bobby would probably be up soon. Sam looked forward to that, because Castiel's shoulders had been tense ever since Sam woke up. The angel was ready to run, and Sam was getting tired just looking at him. Cas knew that things weren't okay, but what could Sam do about that? That was what this stand-still was all about, wasn't it; them being unable to make things okay?

The living room was cluttered with all kinds of old knick-knacks, but mostly with books. They were stacked on the floor, crammed into bookshelves and scattered on the desk. Sam looked around, itching to start straightening things, and figured he might as well make himself useful while he was here. It wasn't like they were paying rent. Bobby might not like it at first: old dogs and new habits and all that, but if he didn't appreciate it when he saw the final results, Sam could always just mess everything up again.

He emptied the bookshelves first. Then he began to separate spell books and lore books from the fictions, leaving everything in separate piles on the floor. The work-related things would go back on the shelves, organised alphabetically by author. If there wasn't room for everything down here, Bobby could at least take his few novels upstairs to his bedroom.

Bobby came down fully dressed a little while later. Sam was sitting cross-legged on the floor, fretting over some books that had no author. Bobby looked into the living room and grumbled, "Are you messing up my system, boy?"

"I'm making you a better one," Sam shot back and abandoned the unhelpful books in a pile he had mentally labelled "pending".

Bobby grumbled some more under his breath, but let it be and swung into the kitchen.

Sam heard him greeting Cas, and was surprised when Castiel made a sound in return, a sort of wordless hello from the back of his throat. Apparently, Cas was willing to try with everyone except Sam. Sam rolled his shoulders, frustration adding to the tension in them.

_Why should I work for this if you're not going to?_

He sighed discontentedly and went back to the books.

Meanwhile, Bobby had pulled eggs and butter from the fridge, spices from a cupboard and a frying pan from underneath the stove. Sam overheard him addressing Castiel. "How about you run upstairs and wake Dean? Tell him breakfast will be ready in five. He can help you put your clothes on and we'll eat when you come back down."

Castiel nodded, jumped from his chair and ran upstairs, drawings forgotten.

Bobby picked up the sketch pad and flipped through it idly. "He must have been awake for some time," he said to Sam. "There are five churches in here." He quickly checked the rest of the pad. "And nothing else."

Sam shrugged. "He's still an angel. Just because he sleeps now doesn't mean he needs as much of it as we do."

Bobby made scrambled eggs and toast, Sam set the table, and eventually their resident sleepy-head was led down the stairs by his angel, who had him by the hand. Cas had his shoes on now, and wore khaki pants and a yellow t-shirt with a couple of cartoony bumblebees flying by on the chest.

"That smells good, Bobby," Dean said as he pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. "I'm starving."

"You're always starving," Sam joked and grabbed a chair next to his brother.

Castiel was looking around, probably for his sketch pad, which had been cleared away, but Dean distracted him by patting the empty chair on his other side. "Come on, sit. This is a family breakfast and that means everybody sits at the table until it's over."

Sam wasn't sure whether Bobby deliberately made some extra noise when putting the now empty frying pan into the sink, or if he was startled. Castiel _was_ startled, no question, and looked at Dean with saucer-eyes. Dean, in a moment of great emotional bravery, for him, held those eyes until Castiel slowly climbed up on the chair.

The angel's chin just reached the tabletop. "Give me a minute," Sam said, rose and headed into the living room to find a book the angel could sit on.

"Here we go," he said as he returned, big book in hand.

Castiel scrambled off the chair and Sam put the book down on it. Bobby came to the table then with a plate topped with scrambled eggs, and after putting it down he lifted Cas up and sat him down on top of the book.

Dean leaned sideways and read the title on the spine. "Good on you, Bobby. Not many people can boast that their copy of _The Annotated Dante_ has been the butt-rest of an angel."

Breakfast went by quickly. Sam discovered that he was actually really hungry, despite having eaten not two hours earlier. Between the four of them the food was devoured. Castiel tasted everything, but didn't eat very much.

"Aren't you hungry?" Dean asked between two mouthfuls.

The angel shrugged.

"Do you remember when we met Famine? Do you feel anything like what you did back then?"

Castiel shook his head.

"So why do you eat?"

Cas screwed his face up thoughtfully. Then he shrugged again. "Nummy?" he said as if that might not simply be the answer to the whole riddle. Sam wondered if it wasn't actually the answer to the meaning of life.

Bobby did the dishes afterwards and roped Dean into drying them, while Sam went back to the books. Castiel helped by carrying _The Annotated Dante_ from the kitchen to the living room. The weight of it didn't seem to bother him at all, though he had to struggle to wrap his arms around it.

"Put it over there," Sam said and pointed to the biggest pile of books. Castiel obeyed. Sam had his back to that pile and so lost sight of him, but when he looked over his shoulder a couple of minutes later, the angel had opened the book and was sitting cross-legged on the floor, seemingly reading in it. He looked a little bored. The image of a be-winged toddler bent over a book that size and age was like something out of a putto painting.

"Can you read that?" Sam asked incredulously.

Castiel nodded.

"That's why you didn't want _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_? Because it was too easy?" This was interesting. "Have you read _The Divine Comedy_ before?" He asked, turning around so he wouldn't have to strain his neck.

The angel looked up with an offended expression.

Sam quickly raised his hands, palms defensively outwards. "Sorry, sorry, of course you have. Probably required reading at the Heavenly Academy."

This earned him a lifted eyebrow and for a moment it was almost like talking to grown-up Cas again. Sam half expected a deadpan "There is no Heavenly Academy", but of course it didn't come.

And then Sam got an idea. He was going to reach out. If he took the first step, at least no one could accuse him of not making an effort to be nice to Castiel, and if the angel didn't want it to amount to anything, then at least Sam had done his part. He was going to broaden the angel's literary horizon, but with what? The lore books surrounding them both wouldn't contain anything Cas didn't know from before, and the novels would probably be incomprehensible or meaningless to him without knowledge of the social and literary conventions the genre employed ... Struck with sudden inspiration, Sam stood up and went to the pile of fictions that he had placed on Bobby's desk. He looked through it until he found a dusty tome of respectable size. The cover was colourfully illustrated, though faded by age, and the title was in golden ink with twirling letters.

Sam returned to Castiel and handed him the book. "You haven't read this before, I'll bet. H. C. Andersen's fairytales."

Castiel studied the book sceptically. Then he looked up at Sam as if asking for an explanation.

"It's children's stories," Sam said helpfully. "They're tragic and full of deep moral lessons. You'll love them."

The angel's expression said that he very much doubted that he would, but he nodded a serious "thank you" and climbed up on the couch with the book, opening it at the beginning. The cover illustration was the same as the one on the title page of the first story, "The Ugly Duckling". The book had sprung to mind now because when Sam had found it earlier that morning, the cover had made him think of Cas. Not that Cas was an ugly duckling, he was an adorable duckling, but the story did have that element of fish-out-of-water, and trying to find one's place in the world, and having potential for larger things than one had ever dared to dream of. Also, there were feathers. Plenty to relate to, in other words.

And it didn't take long before Castiel's obedient application became slack-jawed immersion. Sam silently congratulated himself on a choice well made.

Not long after, Bobby released Dean from kitchen duty, and Dean appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. "If anybody needs me, I'll be out back. I've been neglecting my baby, but that ends today."

"Sure thing," Sam replied, barely looking up. Castiel was considerably more affected by the announcement; as Dean crossed the room for the hallway and the back door, the angel looked from the book to Dean and back again several times. When the door slammed shut behind the elder Winchester, Cas shut the book, jumped down from the couch and ran after him, disappearing around the corner with H. C. Andersen's fairytales still clutched in his arms. Sam heard him opening the back door and shuffling quickly outside before closing it again.

"Where's he going?" Bobby asked, coming into the living room.

Sam struggled to keep his face impassive as he said casually, "Oh, you know what ducklings are like, Bobby; once they've imprinted, they'll follow their mommy everywhere."

It was well into the afternoon when Sam took a break from his project. He stretched until his back popped in a satisfying way, and then he went outside to see what everyone else was up to. Bobby had gone into town a while ago, but had said he'd be back in time to make dinner.

It was sunny today, bordering on too-hot out of the shade, but there was a mass of clouds on the horizon that promised a greyer evening to come.

Sam saw Dean's lower half sticking out from under the hood of the Impala.

He stopped some little way off to observe the peaceful scene. Castiel had found a blue truck from the back of which he could easily keep an eye on Dean, and looked up every now and then in between his reading. He was lying on his stomach with the book open in front of him. Was that Dean's shirt he was lying on?

As Sam watched, Dean pulled himself out of the engine. There were patches of sweat on his t-shirt, and his face shone with it, but he was grinning.

"It'll take time," he said to Castiel, rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead and leaving a smear of dirt. "But she'll be as good as new. She just needs is a little love and attention."

_Her and all of us_, Sam thought, before stepping out from where he stood hidden.

"Hey guys."

"Hey, Sammy," Dean greeted him. "You all done nerding?"

"No," Sam replied. "But I felt like some sun."

The rest of the afternoon was whiled away in the salvage yard. Dean quickly began to order Sam around in familiar fashion, asking him to fetch this or that out of Bobby's bottomless toolbox. It didn't take long before it turned into another lesson in car mechanics, and though Sam was by far not as clueless as he had once been, he didn't mind. He and Dean hadn't been so easy with each other since ... he couldn't remember when. In the end Castiel had stopped reading and was just watching them, so the teacher dragged him over and got himself a second pupil. They taught the angel the names of all the different parts of the car's engine, and he repeated them all with great determination and muddled pronunciation.

They completely missed Bobby's return from town, and were surprised when he was suddenly at the back door, calling them in to dinner.

The boys washed quickly, even Castiel, who had become dusty if not sweaty, and then they ambled into the kitchen to take their places at the table.

The radio was on, playing music, and before Bobby turned it off, Sam caught a couple of lines in Alanis Morissette's unmistakable voice.

"_Day one, day one, start over again. Step one, step one –"_

He looked heavenward and raised an eyebrow. _"Having fun?" _he thought, but if anyone up there was watching them, he didn't reply.

After dinner, Sam finished his project. Proud of himself, he called Dean and Castiel away from the Lego set they had spread out underneath the kitchen table, and Bobby down from upstairs, where he was vacuuming, so that they could praise him.

"Well? What do you think?"

Bobby grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest. "I had a system," he said sullenly.

"No, you didn't," Sam replied.

Dean laughed. "Admit it, Bobby; you've been planning to clean this mess up since Sam was Castiel's age."

"Yeah, yeah, shut up." Bobby sighed and let his hands drop. "Thank you, Sam. I owe you one."

Evening came. Dean was lying on the couch, dozing, and Castiel was sitting on Dean's legs, reading his book of fairytales. Sam was busy with his laptop on Bobby's desk, and Bobby was on one of the many phones in the kitchen, helping out a hunter.

Eventually, Dean yawned and casually plucked the book from Castiel's slack grip. Castiel made a sound of protest and lunged for it, but Dean stretched his arms back and let the book fall on the table in the corner, out of reach. Cas began to crawl up Dean's body to get close enough for another grab, but before he got there, Dean wrapped his arms around him.

"Haha, now you're trapped."

Castiel managed to squirm and somehow look dignified and unimpressed at the same time, but strangely, he didn't teleport to freedom. Instead he got a truly diabolical look in his eyes before suddenly digging his little fingers into Dean's stomach, making Dean scream like a girl.

"No tickling! That is not kosher!"

They were so easy with each other. Sam couldn't understand it. It had been like this all day, Castiel running after Dean, and Dean not only tolerating it, but happily involving Castiel in everything he did, and even joining Cas in his play. It wasn't fair. Had Dean forgotten already?

Sam felt abandoned, and he knew it was ridiculous. Just last night he had been telling Bobby about how he hoped that Dean and Castiel would reconcile, and now seeing them on that road made his stomach twist unpleasantly. He was jealous.

Dean had turned the tables and was tickling Castiel into submission. The angel's laughter sounded oddly otherworldly, almost like he was laughing with two voices at once, except unlike that time at the mall, the sound was harmonious and not discordant.

Sam shook off the soothing effect of the sound and stared determinedly at his laptop.

Eventually, Dean let up. "Clock says it's bed time for angels," he said in a low voice, and rose from the couch, lifting Castiel with him. Castiel rubbed his face against Dean's shoulder and murmured something that sounded like agreement.

"Say goodnight to Sammy?"

Castiel lifted his head a little. "Good night," he said in the tone of someone who was unfamiliar with the custom, and Sam was struck by the ramifications of Dean's affection; he could make everything right between all of them.

"Goodnight," he said, and knew his voice was short and unkind.

If Dean noticed, he gave no indication. He opened the sliding doors to the kitchen long enough to say, "Cas is saying goodnight, Bobby."

"Good night, Bobby!" Castiel said loudly, and they got a few mild swear words in return. Apparently the hunt wasn't going very well. Dean just rolled his eyes.

They left, and Sam tried to focus on his laptop again, but he couldn't keep it up. His frustration mounted until he chose to shut the lid and just sit there, allowing free reign to the bad feeling in his stomach.

When Dean came back downstairs a little later, he seemed distracted. He stopped in the doorway with eyes that seemed to see through the floorboards, and brows lowered in doubt.

"You know ... sometimes he looks at me like I'm ..." He swallowed and seemed to wake up suddenly, lifting his head and glancing quickly and almost fearfully at Sam. Obviously embarrassed by his own near-confession, he scrubbed his hand through his hair and said with forced laughter, "He's a weird little nerd angel, right?"

Sam closed his eyes and tried to clamp down on what he was feeling, but it bubbled up and came out of his mouth before he could stop it.

"Is this it? You're not even going to put up a token resistance?"

Now that he had said it he might as well follow through, but it was hard to glare at Dean, hard to sit still and harder to move.

Dean looked surprised and somewhat lost.

"What?"

"We didn't sleep for a month, Dean. We didn't eat. Most of the time I didn't know what was real and what was my mind playing tricks on me." Anger gave him the strength to stand up. "And it was his fault, Dean! His fault!"

Dean's eyes widened and then narrowed. "What are you bringing this up for? I thought we agreed we had to sit tight for now."

Sam leaned forward, his palms flat on the surface of the desk. "Yeah, but you're not, are you? You're acting as if we're an episode of Full House! How can it be so easy for you? How can you just forget what he did to us?"

"I haven't forgotten!"

In the aftermath of the outburst, they could only stare at each other. Dean's hands were fists by his sides, Sam couldn't look at him anymore, but let his head fall forward to stare at his own white knuckles on the table.

There was no sound from the kitchen, meaning Bobby had probably hung up and was listening.

"What do you want from me, Sammy?" Dean asked, his voice a little higher than normal. He put his hands on his hips restlessly only to take them down again immediately. "Why, when we finally catch a break, get some room to breathe, can't we take advantage of that? I can't go on hating, I just can't."

"And I don't want to!" Sam yelled at the tabletop. "So what am I supposed to do? Just accept what we had to go through? That we were lied to, betrayed, used? Accept that I have to live with hallucinations of my loved ones stripping the skin from my body and carving me open, without any kind of retribution?"

He regretted his words as soon as he saw the look on Dean's face.

"Dean ..."

Dean took a step back. Sam reached out a hand.

"Dean, it wasn't real. I always knew that wasn't real."

"You know ..." Bobby was leaning on the doorway to the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest. "I hate to be the bearer of unpopular opinions, but that wall wouldn't have lasted. Not the way you were fainting all over the place." Sam and Dean both opened their mouths, but were effectively stopped when Bobby held up a hand. "I know, I know, that doesn't help. I'm just saying. Cas might have opened the door to those memories, but he didn't put them in your head, Sam. He went to Hell to get you away from those memories. That's more than anyone expected of him."

"Yes, thank you Castiel, for thinking Dean needed me!" Sam said.

Dean's looked incredulously at Sam. "What?"

Sam realised he had entered territory he didn't want to be in and quickly turned back to Bobby. "So you don't think he left my soul in the cage on purpose?"

"Of course he didn't." Bobby shook his head. "Even if it did make you more useful to Crowley. The Cas we knew wouldn't do that. Not to mention that he's a terrible liar; he was genuinely surprised to find your soul wasn't where it should have been, I'm sure of it."

"Doesn't make it okay."

Sam looked at Dean, surprised by those quiet words.

Dean's face was all resignation. "I know it doesn't." He gave Sam a pleading look. "I haven't forgotten or forgiven anything."

"You're forgiving him more every day," Sam said, but there was no strength behind his accusation.

Dean closed his eyes. "... It's going to kill me, Sammy."

"What is?" He needed a straight answer. For years Dean had claimed he was too tired to go on; since before he went to Hell for the first time, he had claimed exhaustion. This time Sam knew he was telling the truth, because it was an exhaustion they shared, and it was bone deep, but it wasn't enough. It didn't satisfy him. "What is, Dean?"

"The way he looks at me!" Dean took a step forward like he would have liked to grab Sam and shake him, only the desk stood between them. He seemed to be choking on his words. "You don't know ..."

"I know," Sam said simply. "I know."

Dean fell back. "But you don't know how it feels." He looked up at the ceiling. "God, I hope he's asleep."

There was no way to continue this conversation. Bobby was looking between them like he knew the brothers had to sort this out for themselves. He was such a pillar of support for them both, but sometimes they just couldn't lean on him.

And Sam felt guilty. Wasn't he being selfish, demanding that Dean take his side against the only friend Dean had ever had? A friend who was offering Dean everything. Could Sam really stand in the way when Dean had enough to struggle with within himself?

They had to clear the air somehow, had to press forward before they sunk irrevocably beneath the mire of their own emotions.

Sam cleared his throat. "How's the hunt going, Bobby?"

Bobby pressed his lips together and rolled his eyes. "It isn't. I almost wish I could send you two out there. Cas might have wiped out half of the monsters in the United States, but only after Crowley spooked them into doubling their numbers, so the way I figure it, Cas' effort left us back at square one. And after the Apocalypse we're a few hunters short."

"You sound like you just got off the phone with an idiot," Dean said.

Bobby sighed. "A first class moron, though he's a nice guy. He's tracking a djinn, which you just shouldn't do alone."

They had, Sam mused, an amazing ability to pretend like the elephant hadn't just walked through the room, to go on as if they had only been discussing tomorrow's grocery list.

"I wouldn't mind a good hunt," Dean said, crossing the room and sinking heavily down on the sofa. "Hours on the road, eating diner food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, sleeping in skeevy motels ... It's the good life."

Sam allowed the joke to tug once at the corner of his mouth, more to seem helpful than because he felt it. He sank slowly down on his chair again.

"And then of course there's the running for our lives, fighting for our lives and begging for our lives, all so we can gank one, maybe two monsters a week for no pay and rare thanks." Dean sniffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "I take it back. I'd rather babysit."

They went to bed soon after. It was better to lie awake in separate rooms than to sit around catatonically in the heavy silence. Sam spent the time before they separated inwardly urging himself to say something, to apologise, to make Dean stop avoiding his eyes, but he couldn't, because he had meant the things he had said, even though he wanted so, so badly to forgive and forget. He knew from previous experiences that forgiveness was the only way to overcome and move on, even when it seemed impossible, but he wasn't ready. Heaven had made its move too soon.

Sam's dreams that night were full of horses and gun smoke, but everything was burning hot to the touch. He walked and walked through empty towns and down roads that wound through arid plains, but nowhere did he find water. He pursued spots of illusive shade to ward against the flames licking at his skin, but always the shadow turned into wings and flew away before he could reach it. And they were looking for him; he knew they were coming closer, and when they found him they would strip the flesh from his bones and laugh as he danced and clattered.

He awoke with a moan, of frustration as much as of fear. Were the nightmares back, then? Or was this a natural one, just his mind trying to deal with last night's emotions? The duvet was twisted around his feet and he was covered in sweat. Sam groaned and kicked the covers away so he could sit up, but froze when he heard, faintly, a sharp intake of breath to his right.

Castiel was hiding in the doorway, peeking into the room through the crack between door and frame.

How long had he been there?

They just looked at each other for a moment.

_I don't want to be alone_, Sam thought. _Dean and Bobby will leave me behind if I don't do something._

"You're up early again," Sam said, voice rough with sleep.

Castiel didn't move. Maybe he hadn't found his sketch pad. On the other hand there were still Lego blocks all over the kitchen floor; he could have played with them. No, he had probably watched Sam for a while. Had he heard them last night?

"Come here," Sam said, beckoning.

The angel gave himself a restless little shake before slowly obeying. He left the door open behind him and came reluctantly to stand in front of Sam and look at his toes.

"Your book is on the desk, if that's what you were looking for."

Castiel immediately ran over to the desk and stood up on tiptoe to retrieve his precious book.

Of course.

Sam rose and bent over the bag he kept at the foot of the "bed", rummaging around for clothes, and when he straightened up again, Castiel stood expectantly beside the desk with the book in his arms. He didn't look like he intended to leave. Sam figured he wanted the couch, so he yanked the duvet and sheet off it, letting them pile on the floor, before grabbing a towel from his bag. "I'll go get dressed," he said and headed for the bathroom upstairs to take a shower. He didn't notice Castiel's surprise at his words, or see the way he screwed his face up in determination before going to sit on the couch, the book remaining unopened in his arms.

Half an hour later, Sam came back downstairs. He intended to sit in the kitchen until the rest of the household woke up, but had to go by the living room to put away the t-shirt and boxers he had slept in. He froze in surprise in the doorway because Castiel was sitting on the couch with the book unopened, clearly waiting for him.

"Sam?" the angel said.

"Y-yes, Cas?" Sam replied, a little shell-shocked at hearing his own name.

"Read?" Castiel asked.

Sometimes, when your expectations are radically defied, it takes a while for the mind to catch up. "You want me to read to you?" Sam asked.

"U-huh."

"Um ..." He had a quick, intense struggle with himself, but no matter how much he wanted to escape, he couldn't ignore the fact that Cas was finally, _finally_, reaching out. He took a deep breath.

For Dean, if nothing else.

"Okay. Sure." He sat down on the couch while Castiel found his place in the book. Sam felt dizzy. He looked down at the angel and his chest ached, but he had known it would hurt: moving forward always hurt. What had opened was a path, and he had to be strong enough to go down it.

Castiel handed the book over. The next fairy tale was "The Emperor's New Clothes".

The two of them were sitting quite far apart, so Sam patted the space next to him. "Wanna sit here with me? There are pictures ... and stuff."

Castiel nodded very decisively, like he too had made up his mind to be brave about this, and shuffled closer.

Sam wasn't sure what to do with his arms, and opted for simply keeping them at his sides with both hands on the book.

"So yesterday you read …" he leafed his way back to the index to see. ""The Ugly Duckling", "The Tinderbox" and "The Steadfast Tin Soldier"?"

Castiel nodded.

"Did you like them?" Sam asked, even though it had been clear by Castiel's constant reading that he had, very much.

The angel nodded enthusiastically.

"Great! Okay. This is a funny one. Have you heard it before?"

No, he had not.

"Alright ... I've never read to anyone before, so ... this might be a little awkward." Sam smiled nervously. He was surprised when Castiel placed a small, comforting hand on his arm and looked very earnestly supportive. Oh yeah, this wasn't going to be weird at all. "Okay," Sam said quickly. "Here we go. Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress …"

It took a little while before Sam found a comfortable tone, but once he did the tale flowed smoothly. Castiel sat very straight-backed and proper next to him at first, but as the tale unfolded he came to lean against Sam's arm. The stupidity of the Emperor, his ministers and finally the entire city seemed to greatly provoke him. Whenever they praised the dishonest weavers for their nonexistent work he would huff and shake his head, and when the Emperor paraded naked through the streets of the city, Castiel executed a perfect face-palm, making Sam laugh despite himself.

"Yeah, they're pretty stupid."

It wasn't a very long story, and as the last sentence died in the air, so did the comfortable space they had shared for the duration of the tale. Sam turned the page a little desperately to see what came next. It was "The Nightingale", one Sam hadn't read before, but the title page illustration showed the titular bird along with an oriental king lying sick in his bed.

"More?" asked Castiel.

Sam looked down at him. "You want another one?" he asked, trying not to sound too relieved.

Vigorous nodding, but Sam noticed him tucking his feet under him like they were cold.

"This story looks longer, so we'd better get comfortable," Sam said. He put the book into his lap and grabbed the duvet he had discarded on the floor, spreading it over Castiel. As he tucked it in behind the angel, his hands happened by brush by a wing, causing a little shiver to go through Cas. Sam stopped immediately and searched the toddler's face for any signs of fear or pain, but he looked unaffected, eagerly studying the title page of the new story. Sam figured he could ask Dean about it later; the older Winchester should know how Cas felt about having his wings touched, being the one to help him in and out of his clothes.

The sun had risen by now, and came through the windows behind them, haloing Castiel's dark curls in white. Sam opened the book again, but it took him a moment to focus on the words. A mist of white light seemed to have settled before his eyes. He shook his head and blinked until it passed.

This second story was much more melancholy and therefore emotionally taxing, though it had a happy ending. By the end of it, Sam was tired, his head heavy and eyes sore.

"We'll save the rest for later, okay? I think I need to sleep some more." He was unspeakably relieved to have a genuine and natural reason to cut their playtime short. He really was too tired.

Castiel's eyes widened and he scrambled quickly off the couch, pulling the duvet back and holding it up, apparently ready to tuck in Sam in turn. Sam lay down obediently, and Castiel managed, with a little help, to drag the duvet over him.

"Will you be okay until Bobby wakes up?" Sam mumbled, eyes longing to close.

Castiel nodded. For a moment he simply stood there, giving Sam a long, inscrutable stare, but he looked somehow satisfied, like he had accomplished some goal. Sam closed his eyes, so he only heard the little feet that padded away to the kitchen.

They had taken the first step, Sam realised. That would make Dean happy.

This time, Sam slept deeply, and his dreams were not threatening.

Several hours later the same day, the whole family was in the kitchen. Dean was scratching his head and seemed a little speechless. He was flanked by Sam and Bobby, and all three were staring down at the little artist-turned-architect under the kitchen table.

"It's a … nice sculpture, Cas," Bobby said slowly.

Castiel shrugged and picked up some more Lego blocks. He had used almost all of them.

"Does this seem obsessive to you guys?" Sam asked in an undertone.

Dean sighed and knelt down. "Cas, is there any particular reason for the running church motif?"

Castiel pointed at his own head.

Dean raised an eyebrow and shook his head that he didn't understand. Castiel's brows lowered and he twisted his lips thoughtfully. Then he tried again. He folded his hands and placed his head on them to simulate sleep and then he pointed at the Lego church, the spire of which almost touched the underside of the table.

Dean rose. "Is it normal for angels to dream about churches?"

"I didn't know angels dreamt," Sam replied.

"I didn't know angels slept," Bobby added.

"You hear that, Cas? Stop being weird!" Dean said. Castiel lifted his chin and stubbornly ignored him.

Bobby sighed. "I'll start breakfast. You two help him move that, or we're just gonna break it."

The church was a really advanced piece of Lego building. It was yellow, with a red door and an arched doorway. The sides tapered off into a single spire with a cross on top. There were even windows along the sides. Cas had used pretty much the entire stock of blocks for it, but it wasn't complete; it ended in a hole in the back. Nonetheless, it was more detailed and complete than the drawings of yesterday had been.

They moved it carefully to a corner in the living room, where it remained untouched for the rest of the day. Castiel seemed to have lost interest after breakfast, much preferring to trail after Dean into the salvage yard again.

When Sam went to fetch them at dinner time he found Dean asleep on the back of the blue truck and Castiel sitting quietly next to him, looking just like the guardian angel he had so firmly denied himself to be when the Winchesters first met him. He looked up when he heard Sam approach and gave him a big smile as if to say _Look at Dean, isn't he wonderful?_.

Sam couldn't get Dean alone to talk to him, but apparently Castiel had told Dean about this morning, and last night lingered only in some awkward looks over the passing of mashed potatoes and peas. Dean's eyes were asking Sam if he was okay. Sam didn't know what to answer.

_But I think I'm a little better._

After dinner, Dean went to take a shower, so Castiel settled himself in a corner of the couch with his book. Sam received a phone call and left the room to take it, and when he returned, the angel was gone.

"Where's Cas?"

Bobby was brushing up on his djinn-lore for the hunter he had talked to last night. "Out back," he replied without looking up from the tome he was browsing. "He brought the book with him. I guess the story got too exciting."

Sam's brow wrinkled. "How do you mean?"

Bobby looked away for a moment as he if he too needed to consider his own comment. "He was ... kind of shaking. Looked really invested. I got the impression that he wanted to be alone with the ending." He shrugged at Sam. "He'll be in the blue truck, no doubt. It seems to have become a favourite spot."

Castiel did not come back inside, and his mysterious absence made Dean, once he came back from the shower, unable to settle down, but he seemed equally unwilling to actually go looking for the angel without some sort of reason. Sam found himself sincerely wishing it was not due to last night. Dean flipped idly through the handful of channels on the TV, eventually found a show and let it run, but every now and then he would crane his neck to look out of the window, even though the blue truck wasn't visible from there. Sam and Bobby kept their mouths shut and pretended not to notice.

But inevitably, bedtime arrived. At the earliest possible moment, Dean stretched, yawned and turned off the TV. He rubbed his hands on his thighs and rose from the couch. "It's getting late. Better go get the tot."

Sam managed not to roll his eyes until Dean's back was turned. Once the backdoor slammed, both Sam and Bobby sighed.

Bobby shook his head. "I'm not sure whether it's pathetic or adorable."

A couple of minutes later Dean came back inside with Castiel cradled against his chest. Sam expected there to be a round of goodnights before they went upstairs, but Dean didn't stop at all. Sam only got a quick look at his face, but what he saw worried him. Dean looked serious and troubled, and Castiel lay limply in his arms with his face turned into Dean's neck. Even the angel's wings hung boneless and still.

"What was that about?" Bobby asked quietly.

Sam shook his head. "I don't know. Should we go see?"

Bobby's eyes narrowed. "Nah. Dean'll fill us in when he comes downstairs."

But Dean took his sweet time, and eventually Sam couldn't contain his curiosity anymore. He scaled the stairs as quietly as he could. As he neared the door to the guest room, he could hear Dean's voice. He stopped, and realised with surprise that his big brother was singing. It sounded like a lullaby.

Sam swallowed. He raised a hand to knock, but thought better of it almost immediately and snuck back downstairs; he was rewarded for his restraint, because Dean came down not long after.

"What's up with Cas?" Sam asked as soon as Dean was in the doorway.

Dean shook his head slowly. "I don't know. I found him in the truck, just ... sitting there. He wouldn't even look at me when I put him to bed."

"Maybe it was a sad story?" Bobby suggested.

At Dean's questioning glance, Sam explained. "Cas took the book outside."

"I don't know. I didn't see it there," Dean said dismissively. He looked down at his hands helplessly. "I couldn't make him tell me what was wrong."

"It's okay, Dean," Sam said. "He'll probably be ready to tell you in the morning."

Dean gave him a willing half-smile and a nod.

They turned on the TV and found a channel showing _The Magnificent Seven_, a western classic, but even cowboys and Indians couldn't cheer Dean up, and he went early to bed again.

Sam woke the next morning with a burning question. Where was the book? Dean hadn't seen it, so what had Cas done with it? For Cas to leave it outside all night wasn't consistent with the way he had kept it close to him almost obsessively for two days.

Still a little sleep addled, Sam got quickly out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and his shoes, and went outside to look. It didn't take him long. A few metres beyond the blue truck he found it, or what was left of it.

The back of the book was blackened and crumbling. Sam stood for a long moment simply looking at it. Cas must have used his angel mojo to set the book on fire. But why? Sam knelt down and turned the pages until he found the index, looking for the title of the story Castiel would have been reading last night. A quick check confirmed that the title corresponded to the most badly charred part of the book.

Only when he came back inside did Sam realise the second strange thing going on this morning: Castiel was apparently still in bed. He was not in the kitchen, his sketch pad was untouched, and it was almost two hours beyond his, and by consequence also Sam's, now usual wake-up time.

Sam pulled out his laptop at Bobby's desk and googled the title he had found. Within the first ten items he found the full text of the fairy tale, and settled down to read it. Before he was halfway through he thought he knew what had happened.

So after breakfast he pulled Bobby aside and asked if he didn't need another trip into town. Bobby caught on quickly, and within an hour he and Sam were on the road, speeding towards town in Bobby's car. Dean had remained behind with a morose and unresponsive Castiel.

"Well?" Bobby wondered. "You said we needed to talk. So which fairy tale is it that makes angels depressed?"

"Not "angels", Bobby: Dean's angel," Sam replied, folding his hands in his lap. "He was reading "The Little Mermaid"."

Bobby's bushy eyebrows disappeared under his cap. "Are you kidding me?"

Sam bit his lip on an understanding grin. "Yeah, I know, but it is actually counted among H. C. Andersen's tragedies, and for good reason. Do you know the story, by the way?" He looked sidewise at the older hunter.

"I know the broad strokes, I suppose," Bobby said, shrugging.

"Like the part where the mermaid saves a human prince from drowning in a storm?" Sam said meaningfully.

"Um, yeah." Bobby turned away from the road for a moment to raise an eyebrow at Sam. "That supposed to mean something to me?"

Sam spoke slowly and with emphasis. "A non-human creature saves a human male by _raising him from the deep_. Or perdition, if you want to be beaten over the head with it."

Bobby's eyes widened in understanding. "Oh." But then his brow wrinkled. "So Cas can identify with the mermaid. What's so upsetting about that? It's a fairy tale. Happily ever after and all that."

"I told you, this is one of the tragedies," Sam said. "But we'll get to that, there's more first. See, after saving the prince, the mermaid sells her voice to become human so that she can be with him. All the mermaids have these really gorgeous singing voices, but the heroine's is really special. She basically sacrifices her most precious gift to be with the man she loves, and in the process she is forever divided from her family."

Bobby sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Sacrificing your grace to be with your human, booted from Heaven for your trouble. Strike two for Cas identifying with the mermaid. What comes next?"

"Well, she becomes human and is found by the prince, who takes a liking to her and adopts her as a sort of pet. And she does everything to please him, even though he never sees her the way she needs him to."

"You're just phrasing this to make it sound as near-to as possible!"

"Maybe." Sam shrugged. "But I think Cas picked up on the parallels. It's probably why he left before the dramatic conclusion; he was emotionally invested."

The car sped past field, forest and a few clusters of houses. They were almost alone on the road.

Sam continued quietly. "The prince happens to be of marrying age, and his parents have selected a princess for him, but he himself would rather marry the girl he _thinks_saved him from the storm. Only problem is that she lives in a temple and is apparently going to be a nun or something, so he can't have her. But when they travel to the neighbouring kingdom to meet the prince's intended, she turns out to be the girl from the temple, and so everybody wins."

"Except the mermaid."

"And since this isn't the uncomplicated world of Disney, the temple-girl is beautiful and sweet and absolutely perfect, not a drag-queen sea-witch in disguise." At Bobby's questioning expression, Sam waved his hand dismissively. "That's the Disney movie. Anyway, the marriage is scheduled, and the mermaid's contract says that if the prince marries someone other than her, she will die the morning after the ceremony."

"She dies!"

Sam nodded. "She is given a way out if she is willing to kill the prince, but she throws herself into the sea instead, choosing death. After publication, Andersen added a happy ending of sorts where the mermaid is given an immortal soul and there is some moralising about good children helping mermaids go to Heaven or whatever, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a story about futile love."

Bobby was silent for a while. "I doubt he had much hope to begin with, but this probably didn't help. Interesting though, how his memories ain't the only things he got to keep. Toddler or no, he's still in love with Dean."

Sam nodded thoughtfully. "The worst part is that the prince actually does love the mermaid. He takes her everywhere, kisses her and even confesses love for her, but he never even contemplates actually marrying her. He doesn't see that the love he feels is romantic love, because he thinks of the mermaid as a child."

Bobby thumped his head back against the headrest with a groan. "And Dean fails to make the connection because Castiel took a male vessel, and is now a toddler."

"In both cases the beloved object is perceived in a non-sexual form and so the loving subject doesn't make the connection from platonic to romantic love," Sam finished.

Bobby drew a deep, slow breath. "I have a headache," he said and closed his eyes for a moment, but when he opened them again they were narrowed. "Do we tell Dean?" He looked at Sam. "He seemed to be on the right track last night; maybe we could give him a leg-up over that final hurdle."

"Oh, I want to, I've wanted to forever." Sam laughed mirthlessly. "I'll say: Hey Dean, our toddler angel is in love with you, so would you please get over your thirty-two years – oh wait, forty years in Hell, make that seventy-two years – of deep-seated homophobia and insecurity, as well as all the issues arising from said angel's recent betrayal, and just propose to him already?" He turned his head to the side and gave Bobby a flat look. "That would totally work." He straightened up and shook his head. "You know what Dean would do if we just up and told him how to handle this."

"The damn opposite," Bobby replied. "I knew that. Forget I said anything."

"Even if, against all odds, my idiot big brother managed to stumble on the right course of action and he and Cas lived happily ever after, he would always resent himself for needing to be told the truth, and he would resent us for telling him."

"Yeah," Bobby agreed quietly. "But it's a bitch to be unable to help them in any way."

"Oh, there might be something we can do to help," Sam assured him. "In fact, I asked you to take me out for a reason. It all depends on what we find downtown."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter specific summary**: _ Dean's shoulder burned, but the hand pressed against it felt, beyond the silky slip of small fingers, large and rough._

**Author's notes: ** It feels great to be back after our delay. The plot is upon us with full force now, though once again you might have to squint to see it. And the rubber duck finally makes an appearance.

Formatting on this page is not easy. In the last chapter I told you guys to check out Nenja's awesome art for this story, but my imbedded link disappeared. Let's try again. You can find Nenja on deviantart. Her name in the url is nenja-black. Alternatively you can go to devantart and search for "burn so brightly", and her art will pop up.

Now onwards to the story!

* * *

><p>Sam and Bobby left right after breakfast had been cleared away. If they said why they were going, Dean didn't hear them.<p>

Castiel seemed somehow inapproachable where he sat at the kitchen table with his sketch pad. Dean must have sat for an hour simply watching him, fighting his own paralysis, thinking in circles of worry until he was exhausted. The tableu before his eyes eventually began to seem foreign to him, the angel a being from the secret world beyond the veil, at once a symbol of innocence and a keeper of secrets, oblivious to his surroundings, the kitchen a dark, cluttered cave full of abandoned treasures and forgotten memories.

When Dean eventually got up from his chair it was to grab a beer from the fridge and go outside to sit on the porch. Cas didn't once look up from his drawing.

It was sweltering outside. Dean's beer quickly grew lukewarm, and his t-shirt clung to his back. The cicadas were making a racket like it was their last day on Earth, but the birds were silent and absent. It was hard to think in the heat, his brain boiling in its own juices, his heart hammering uselessly beneath his breast bone.

He let his head hang down, closing his eyes against the stinging sun, inhaling cotton and exhaling frustration.

He knew that last night it had been cool outside, but in the here and now, he couldn't imagine it. In his memory he seemed to be walking through a furnace towards the blue truck. Castiel had been sitting inside it for once, in the passenger seat with the windows rolled up. Boxed in. Canned angel. He had not looked up when Dean opened the door.

"_Hey, buddy, what's wrong?"_

"_Nothing."_

He had pulled Cas out of the car, and it felt like lifting a ragdoll.

"_You sleepy?"_

"_No."_

"_Are you sad?"_

"_No."_

Dean was not confident in the face of this unexplained sorrow. He had carried Cas upstairs, helped him brush his teeth and put on his pyjamas, and asked one last time.

"_Won't you tell me what's wrong?"_

Castiel had reached up, put his arms around Dean's neck and hugged him without a word, before lying down on the mattress and closing his eyes.

Dean had sat down on his own bed, much the same way he was sitting on the porch step now, and stubbornly refused to leave. As a last ditch effort he had tried to communicate his worry by calling on his mother's voice.

"Hey Jude, don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better ..."

Even the words burned away in the sun. Last night they had sunk into the silence and made no difference at all. Quick as a shadow, Castiel had been asleep, and Dean had failed to comfort him.

Through the orchestra of cicadas came a different kind of roar. An engine. The sound burrowed into Dean's ear, growing stronger, until whoever it was must be just around the bend. Sam and Bobby shouldn't be back quite so soon. Dean got up and hurried inside.

"Cas, we've got guests," he called before he was even in the kitchen. He put his beer down, dragged his sticky t-shirt off and wiped the sweat off his chest quickly. "You'd better hide upstairs."

At least Cas was looking at him now, all wide eyes, as if a stranger at the door was such a big deal.

"Come on." He shooed the angel off the chair and into the hallway.

Only a minute later, the doorbell rang, and Dean tiptoed quickly downstairs in a clean t-shirt.

But it was only Sheriff Mills. She looked uncomfortable in her heavy uniform and strands of hair were sticking out from her ponytail.

She lifted an eyebrow at the sight of him. "Dean Winchester. Are we in trouble then?"

"What?" Oh, zombies. "No, no, we're just visiting."

"You and your brother?"

"Yup."

She looked beyond him into the hallway. "Is Bobby home?"

"He's in town. I'm alone ... Is he in trouble?"

She shook her head. "I came because I might have a case for him." She gave Dean a calculating look. "But seeing as you're in the same ... business ... maybe you would do."

Dean agreed readily and invited her in. They sat down in the kitchen. He offered her something to drink, and she accepted a glass of water.

"So what's the case?"

She put the glass down and licked her lips. "I'm not sure there is one, but my gut feeling tells me there's something wrong. A couple of days ago a man shot himself in the head with his own gun, at point blank range. He was alone in his cabin with no one else around for miles, the door was locked from the inside and the only DNA on the scene is his."

Dean folded his hands on the table and leaned forward on his elbows. "But you don't think it was suicide."

"There were no prints on the weapon, and no residue on his hands. He can't have fired the gun." She gave Dean a significant look. "But neither can anyone else."

Dean considered it. "Have there been any violent incidents in this guy's past, or were any other murders comitted in the cabin?"

The Sheriff tilted her head to the side. "What are you thinking about?"

"If he was ganked by something supernatural, it's probably a vengeful spirit. Someone's ghost." But there was no need to start digging into the victim's history yet. There was, after all, an easy way to tell if a place had been visited by a ghost.

Dean got up from the table. "I'll be right back."

He went quietly up the stairs and headed for the guest room. Castiel was there, standing at the window and looking outside. Dean wanted to reach out and pull the angel away from there, to shield him from the brown, burning world.

Cas looked up when Dean entered. "Come out now?" he asked.

"Not yet," Dean replied in a low voice. "But she'll be gone soon."

He found his casette-player-turned-EMF-metre and gave Cas a quick, tight smile before heading back downstairs.

"This thing can read –"

He stopped in the kitchen doorway. The Sheriff was standing at the cluttered counter with a piece of paper in her hand. It was one of Castiel's drawings, an early black-and-white one. It must have fallen out of the sketch pad.

"I didn't know Singer had kids," she said without looking up.

Dean remembered how she had lost her own child, twice, and chose his lie carefully. "He doesn't. My brother drew that. He draws like a three-year-old."

She made an understanding movement with her head and dragged her eyes from the drawing with difficulty, putting it down.

"Got something for me?" she asked, noticing the little black box in his hand.

Dean came forward to show her the EMF-metre, eager to move the scene along and make her forget the drawing. He explained to her how it worked and showed her how to use it.

"So just do a sweep of the house and if you strike gold, let us know, and we'll take care of it."

"Alright."

"Don't go up there after dark, and don't go alone. Just to be safe."

She nodded readily. "I won't, officer."

He shifted his weight and smiled awkwardly. Couldn't tell her about all the bodies he had seen ripped open because they hadn't know, hadn't taken precautions.

Sheriff Mills smiled. "Thank you Dean."

A cloud of dust rose up behind her car when it rolled away. Dean closed the door and went back upstairs to let Cas out.

The door to the guestroom was closed. Dean opened it and leaned on the doorway. "She's gone. It's safe to come out."

Castiel sat crosslegged in the middle of Dean's bed, staring at his sketch pad. He lifted his head a little to indicate that he was listening, but he didn't look up. Unlike the rough sketch that the Sheriff had seen – and there was a weird similarity in the significance the drawings seemed to have for them – these newer ones were colourful. Castiel was improving, and at a pretty alarming rate. The lines were straighter, the building more detailed, there were colours in the windows, and, for the first time, there was a proper background.

"You coming down?" Dean asked finally.

Castiel made a non-comitical noise. He was back in his own little world.

Dean sighed. He left the door open and went back downstairs to watch TV. Over the last two days the world had begun to change. It was all over the news. New rivers and lakes were drying up, money was being shifted back to rightful owners, pollution was increasing and the weapons trade was picking up the slack. Awesome.

"How is this a good thing?" Dean mumbled, unsure of whether he was talking to Chuck or Gabriel or no one in particular. "Couldn't you have left us the good stuff? Don't we deserve a break?"

Not that he didn't see one advantage; if none of the changes stuck, people would soon forget that a God had ever walked among them.

Dean glanced up at the ceiling. "At least the world isn't ending. My biggest problem right now is figuring out why my baby won't talk to me."

It was a relief when Sam and Bobby returned from town. Dean was surprised when Sam pulled a slim, but sizeable box out of the trunk of the car.

"What's in that?"

"A DVD-player," was the at once enlightening and unhelpful reply.

"Did you buy movies too by any chance?" Dean asked as he followed his little brother into the house, Bobby trailing behind them both.

"Just one." Sam seemed ... smug. Why?

"Which one?"

"You'll see."

Sam installed the DVD-player, Dean watching him from the couch, but it was left alone after that, and the one DVD Sam had allegedly bought didn't surface until the evening. Some of the heat had finally dissipated, enough for Dean to go outside and work on the Impala for a while. When he came back inside, Bobby was making popcorn in the kitchen and a colourful DVD case lay on the desk in the living room.

"The Little Mermaid?"

"Sam's choice," Bobby said from the kitchen.

Dean stared uncomprehendingly at the cover. "Where did I go wrong, Bobby? I thought I brought the kid up right!"

Sam appeared then with Cas on his arm.

"Really, Sam?" Dean asked, holding up the DVD. "This is what you like to do on a Saturday night? Maybe Bobby can do your nails afterwards and we can talk about boys and our feelings."

Sam ignored him, nabbing the movie out of Dean's hand and turning away from him. "Do you trust me?" he asked Castiel, giving him the DVD.

Castiel looked at it for a long moment. And then he threw it to the floor.

Dean laughed. "Haha! Even the toddler agrees with me!"

Sam crouched down, put Cas on his feet and picked up the movie again. "Look, I promise you'll like it. Just give it a chance."

Dean watched, a little confused, as Castiel looked angrily, searchingly, into Sam's eyes. What was going on? The glare softened eventually, but it was a pretty grumpy angel that eventually nodded his head.

Sam rose, decisive and satisfied. "Great. Let's move the couch."

"What?" No, seriously, why did Sam want to watch "The Little Mermaid"?

"Don't you go rearranging my furniture, boy! You've done enough already!" Bobby yelled over the sound of popping.

"I promise I'll put it back!" Sam replied, and then he and Dean (reluctantly helping) turned the couch around so that it was in front of the TV.

As they admired their work, Dean said, "Wouldn't it have been easier to turn the TV?"

"Probably," Sam agreed.

Castiel clambered up to sit in the middle of the couch, arms crossed over his chest and wings fidgeting.

The DVD was put in the player, bowls were found for the popcorn, and Dean realised that this was actually going to happen. With a sigh he sat down next to Cas, Sam taking the final seat in the sofa and Bobby grabbing a chair.

"Alrighty, then. Let the torture begin," Dean announced.

On screen, the Disney castle appeared, white on a blue background.

"Sam, is there any particular reason why you went with "The Little Mermaid" and not ... you know, a good movie? Are there any other girly movies you like? Just so I know what to get you for Christmas."

Sam put a finger to his lips. "Shhh."

Dean shook his head, decided that his little brother was probably gay, and reached for the popcorn.

Ten minutes into the film, Dean was dying of boredom. And thirst. He volunteered, though no one had asked, to get drinks, and found three bottles of beer in the fridge. He handed one to Bobby, sat down and passed the second bottle to Sam, raising it high above Castiel's head when the angel tried to reach for it.

"The rules haven't changed since Wednesday, Cas. You can have water, milk, juice, cola: just pick something."

Castiel frowned. "But I like beer!" he replied.

"You can't have beer," Dean insisted. "I'll get you some juice."

Castiel bristled. Dean had one second to see the hand coming before he found himself outside in the salvage yard.

"DAMN IT, CAS!"

He stomped back inside, got a glass from a cupboard and some orange juice from the fridge and stomped some more as he crossed to the couch and held the glass out for the angel. "Here. You can even have an actual glass, like a grown up."

Castiel had his arms crossed over his chest and refused to look up from the TV. His feathers were splayed out in all directions.

"Sorry, Cas," Bobby said helpfully. "But every age has its perks and punishments."

Dean put the glass on the floor in front of Castiel. "There." Then he sat down on the couch again.

Castiel was quickly distracted by the movie, but Dean, who wasn't paying the same attention, noticed that his wings remained stiff and unhappy. Eager to preserve the peace and sick of the escalating tension between them, Dean began to carefully stroke one of the big feathers pointing aggressively his way. It worked; as he ran his fingertips lightly along the top ridge of Castiel's right wing, the feathers began to fold in and relax. Castiel sagged back against the sofa and his head tilted in Dean's direction. Dean's fingertips tingled long after he stopped.

In movie-land, progress was being made. The anorexic mergirl had lost her tail, her voice and her dignity and was now boating with the man she loved. Off to a great start, Dean thought.

The Jamaican crab struck up another tune, something more mellow this time.

Between Sam and Dean, Castiel was leaning forward in anticipation, his attention riveted to the TV. Dean couldn't understand how he could be so invested in the story of a teenage girl's struggle to get laid. But maybe that was exactly the thing; maybe Castiel could identify. He also had yet to get laid, after all. Of course, being two and all, he really shouldn't be wanting to in the first place.

The song came to a climax and the lovers were soundly thwarted, which was probably for the better, as a rowboat was a poor place to do the dirty (Dean knew this from experience). Especially with all those fish watching.

But next to Dean, Castiel began to gasp for breath like he was about to start crying. Dean was alarmed, but before he could do anything, Sam had pulled the angel onto his lap and was murmuring into his ear.

"Didn't I ask you to trust me?"

Castiel looked over his shoulder at Sam and there were definitely tears in the toddler's eyes now. "But, but –"

Sam ran a hand over the angel's hair soothingly. "Things don't always end the way they were written, Cas. We know that better than anyone."

Castiel nodded hesitantly. He sniffed and rubbed at his eyes and turned back to watch the TV again, settling back against Sam's chest.

Dean was baffled. What the hell had just happened? Castiel was soothed, but Dean felt like the rug had been yanked from under his feet. Had Sam just ...? Where had that come from? Why was Dean out of the loop?

He stole a sideways glance at the angel snuggled up in Sam's arms and disliked what he saw with every fibre of his being.

Bobby didn't appear to have noticed, or at least he wasn't surprised. All of a sudden, Dean was standing on the outside looking in. He wanted to get up and leave, go take a ride in the Impala maybe. He wanted to get Sam alone and interrogate him. He wanted Cas back!

Instead he watched, numbly, as Ariel found herself facing a competitor for the prince's affections. But, being a Disney production, everything was rainbows and puppies by the end, Castiel's eyes were huge and sparkly with wonder, and Dean wished there was a ghoul nearby for him to murder.

"See?" Sam said to Castiel. "She got her prince."

"Poor schmuck," Dean heard himself saying angrily. "Married at sixteen to a girl that's dumb as a post. That's gonna go great. She couldn't even draw the guy a frickin' picture to let him know who she was. Was it really that hard to come up with an alternative method of communication? Simple sign-language too complicated for her?"

"What's eating you?" Bobby asked.

Dean rose from the couch. "I'm heading out."

"Where?"

"Out."

He grabbed his jacket and was almost to the car when he realised that he didn't have the keys. Unwilling to go back for them, Dean set off into the grey twilight, out of the salvage yard and down the road. The sun hung low in the sky, hidden behind long strips of cloud, but the warmth of the day still enveloped Dean like a blanket.

He had really hit rock bottom now, storming out like a child, angry at everyone and no one. Angry that Sam could reach Castiel while Dean suddenly couldn't. What had he done to deserve the cold shoulder? Why weren't they including him?

Had he done something wrong?

Eventually his pace slowed. Against his will the anger was dissipating in the evening air.

How could he be jealous that Sam was finally bonding with Castiel? Since day one he had been worried that the two of them would be unable to make up, especially since this was probably their last real time together.

Dean stopped, having unexpectedly struck at the core of his own restless pain.

Chuck had said that Cas would eventually be called home, and Gabriel had only asked them to babysit. In other words, they had the angel on loan.

Dean hadn't admitted it to himself, but he really didn't expect Cas to stay, and once the angel went back to Heaven, why should he come back? The Apocalypse was over, Dean was no longer a servant of Heaven. This was it, these long, sedate days of summer. This would be his only chance to make sure he and Cas were okay before …

He turned towards home, walking purposefully.

Damn their secrets and Castiel's silence. Dean Winchester didn't just give up when faced with a challenge. He would bang on their doors until someone opened up for him. If nothing else he would make someone tell him what he had done wrong, and then maybe he could fix it.

It was dark by the time he got back, getting to be past Castiel's bedtime, in fact, and the thought made Dean speed up as he crossed to the porch. Had Sam put the angel to bed already?

Lamps were lit inside; they spread a golden glow through the house. The smell of popcorn lingered over the familiar scent of old wood and dusty books. A powerful sense of home slammed into Dean, and he remained in the hallway for a moment, breathing in the feeling.

Home. Family.

He was going to try again.

"Dean, is that you?" Bobby's voice called from the depths of the house.

"Yeah, I'm back," Dean replied. He hung up his jacket, kicked off his shoes and headed for the living room.

The couch had been put back in its proper place. Bobby was reading the newspaper and Sam was on his laptop.

Dean remained in the doorway for a moment, feeling awkward.

"Where'd you go?" Sam asked quietly.

"I don't know." Dean shrugged. "Just walked around for a while." He cleared his throat and looked around. "Cas in bed?"

"Nah, he's in the bath," Sam replied, his attention drifting back to the computer.

"Bath?"

"Apparently, he wasn't ready for the grown up glass yet," Bobby explained, turning the page of his paper. "After you left he managed to spill juice all over himself. So we put him in the tub."

Sam put the laptop down next to him on the couch and rose with a sigh. "But I guess he's been in there long enough. I can get him out, put him to bed."

"No, no, you sit down," Dean said quickly, already backing towards the door to the stairs. "I've got it." He didn't wait for protests, and didn't notice that they didn't come, or see Sam wink triumphantly at Bobby, and Bobby roll his eyes with a crooked smile.

The bathroom was small, cramped and old. Apart from the sink, the toilet and the bathtub, there was a tall, narrow closet for towels and some shelves for every other necessary thing. The walls were tiled in white and blue, and the shower curtain was pale yellow and flowery (Bobby wasn't one for renovation of any kind. He claimed he was too old, Sam and Dean thought he was just lazy.).

Castiel sat in the bathtub, his wings arched carefully over the water, which reached his waist. Dean recognised the rubber duck bobbing in the waves as the one he had randomly grabbed in the store.

"Hello," Cas said when Dean opened the door.

"Hi," Dean replied, stepping over the threshold and kneeling down next to the tub. "Having fun?"

"Yes."

Castiel's hair was wet and plastered to his neck and forehead. The water was swirling with soap.

"All clean now?" Dean asked. "Ready for bed?"

Castiel screwed up his face thoughtfully. "Okay," he said finally, and gripped the edge of the tub to steady himself as he stood.

Dean opened the closet to find a towel, pulled out a large, white one and wrapped it around Castiel before lifting him out of the tub. He put the angel down on his lap and began to dry him off, starting with his hair.

The knot in his chest was easing. Something had changed; Cas was alive now, his eyes seeing the world around him instead of being locked on something far away, and he was finally looking at Dean.

He looked thoughtful. "Dean?"

Dean's hands stilled. "Yeah?"

Castiel's hair was sticking out in every direction. There was an almost timid expression on his face as he reached a hand out for the left half-sleeve of Dean's t-shirt, pushing the material up to reveal the red handprint branded into the skin. The angel licked his lips hesitantly before closing his eyes and placing his hand over the mark.

With a mighty roar, light rushed into Dean's head, blinding his eyes and swamping his other senses. Something inside him rose up like one fire greeting another, and the two rushed into each other and became one. His shoulder burned, but the hand pressed against it felt, beyond the silky slip of small fingers, large and rough.

And the voice that thundered through his soul was deep and masculine.

"_Dean, I-"_

"NO!"

It ended apruptly.

For a moment everything was suspended, and Dean's head was blank, his heart running away from what it had almost learned.

Castiel had curled up, head down and hands held tight to his chest, his wings flat against his back. Dean lifted a numb hand to touch him and the angel shrank from it.

"Cas, I can't –" Dean began, and though he knew it wasn't wanted, he placed his hand on Castiel's head, running it through his damp hair. "This can't –"

Castiel shuddered. Helpless to say all the things that he was feeling, Dean simply wrapped the towel around Cas, lifted the angel up and struggled to his feet. "I'm sorry," he mumbled into Castiel's hair.

When Cas lay down on his bed a little later, he had yet to look at Dean.

Once downstairs, Dean grabbed the newspaper and hid behind it so no one would see him.

* * *

><p>The next day was Sunday, and it was the quietest Sunday Dean could remember. Perhaps because he stayed outside in the salvage yard all alone until the shadows began to lengthen. He was on his back underneath the Impala, when, someone distinctly neither Sam, Bobby nor Castiel was suddenly straddling his legs.<p>

Dean started so badly he almost smacked himself in the face with the wrench he was holding. He was lying on a wheeled board and managed to push himself out from under the truck. He emerged into the open to find Anna looking down at him amusedly.

Dean obeyed his first instinct and swung the heavy wrench against her head, but Anna caught it deftly in one hand, and with angelic strength, held it still against his frantic tugging.

"Relax, Dean, I'm here to talk," she said mildly.

"Yeah right," Dean countered. He threw his weight against her suddenly, and with an effort managed to topple them onto the ground with her underneath him.

She just laughed. "Is this how you treat all your one-night-stands?" she asked with a grin, before easily rolling them over again and settling her weight on his stomach, knocking the breath out of him.

"How are you so heavy?" Dean asked breathlessly. She weighed much more than her slight frame warranted.

She cocked her head to the side. "It's the weight of my grace. I've been restored, you see."

"So I heard," Dean wheezed. "I thought you said you weren't here to kill me."

"I'm not," Anna replied.

"Then get off!"

She complied, swinging one leg over and sitting down next to him on the tarmac. Dean inhaled gratefully and didn't bother to get up, content to simply lie on the ground and breathe for a while.

"Restored, huh?" he asked eventually. "By Chuck?"

"By God," she replied, and there was a joy in her voice that he had never heard before. "One moment I was nowhere, and the next I was standing in His presence. All my brothers and sisters were there, and we were one mighty host again. It was beautiful, Dean. I wish you could have seen it."

Dean pushed himself up on his elbows. "So everything's just peachy now? What happened to you rebels getting put to death and all that?"

Anna's expression took on a note of pride. "God is forgiveness, Dean."

Dean gave her a look that said she was going to have to do better than that, and after a while she began to look less certain.

"Of course some had to atone," she admitted eventually.

That sounded more likely. "Atone how?" Dean asked, sitting up and turning so he was facing her.

"Michael and Raphael were ... They are no longer archangels. They were stripped of their rank."

Dean balked. "What?" Not that it didn't sound like a bright idea to contain those two crazy powerhouses, but it was going to throw the whole religion off track. Who was going to tell the priests, the congregations, the people who printed bibles, that two of the archangels had been demoted?

Anna wound her arms around her knees and looked thoughtfully up at the sky. "In time, Father will name new angels to take their places, but until then Gabriel is in charge of everything. It isn't easy for him."

Dean thought it was only good for Gabriel to take some responsibility.

"New archangels, huh? You sent in your application yet?"

She shook her head. "It's not for me. I believe we were all born for certain things, and Archangel is not my thing."

Dean's eyes widened. "You believe in destiny? You?"

Anna smiled gently. "No. Not destiny, not really, just that we all have a greater affinity for some paths of life than others. You and I, for instance, are soldiers. I like taking an active part, to see and feel the good that I'm doing. The Archangels are too removed, all they get to do is give orders."

"Must be terrible," Dean said sarcastically, but he actually understood her very well. They sat for a moment in silence, Dean studying Anna and her peculiar expression: a mix of her strong personality and a new docile joy. She who had doubted the existence of God to the point where she had comitted what basically amounted to angelic suicide, had finally been given the truth. So this was what an angel high on faith looked like. The impression was made a little hilarious when Dean considered that Anna was mooning over Chuck.

"So," he said finally. "Uriel is back too? Even though he fought for Lucifer?"

Anna nodded. "Father brought us all back indescriminately. Uriel is not the only angel who worked with Hell, nor the only one to commit murder. But he was punished; he has been reborn on Earth as a human being. It's Father's hope that when he dies and is given his grace back, he will have learned to love Adam the way we all vowed to do."

Dean laughed. "Awesome! Let's see how he enjoys being a mudmonkey."

But Anna's brow was furrowed, and she had unconsciously angled her body away from Dean's.

He thought for a moment that he had insulted her, but couldn't imagine how. "Something wrong?"

"I don't blame you for trying to attack me before," she said, folding her hands in her lap. "In fact I'm surprised you were willing to talk to me at all."

Oh.

"You mean because the last time we met you tried to kill me and Sam?" Dean asked drily. "I suppose that could make conversation awkward."

Anna bit her lower lip, looking contrite and young. "I'm not even sure if I came to ask for forgiveness, or if there's any point." She looked up and drew a breath to speak, stopped herself, tried again. "To be able to finally see and speak to my Father, to be in his presence and know beyond a doubt that he is real ... it gave me so much hope, but I couldn't enjoy it while there was still bad blood between us. You helped me when I was helpless, and I ..." She sought and held Dean's eyes with her own. "I won't ask for forgiveness, and yet I am drawn to you for a resolution of some kind, any kind."

"You're just like Cas," Dean said very quietly. "He won't ask either."

"I know how he feels," Anna said, new intensity entering her voice. "You look back, and your crimes rise up like mountains, and you think "How can I ever atone?". Asking for forgiveness will not make those mountains go away. Sometimes I think I will live in their shadow forever. What must it feel like for Castiel? His crimes are ... unimaginable."

Dean swallowed. "I get it. I have a mountain too." His eyes narrowed in determination. "But forgiveness is about people saying they'll accept you anyway, mountains or no mountains. That they are willing to help you move on, until you reach the end of that shadow. That's why you gotta ask. No matter what you've done."

Anna frowned. "That's very beautiful, Dean," she said, dissatisfied. "But no matter what you've done? Really? How about when your crime is against God himself? The entire host is on Earth right now, righting what Castiel has done, and what is he doing?" With her hand she swept the horizon of car wrecks before them. "Vacationing."

Dean said nothing for a while. "Yeah, well, I don't give a damn what he's done to offend Chuck. All I know is that Cas was there for us when God had screwed us over. When we were being treated to an Apocalypse, courtesy of your brothers, Cas gave up everything to help us out. And when Raphael tried to repeat the stunt, Cas saved our asses. I say he deserves a vacation."

"Well listen to you, defending him," Anna said, and her tone was completely transformed. "You weren't thinking like that a week ago."

Dean felt like he had been had. "Hey, I didn't say he gets off free! He hurt Sam, that matters to me, but Heaven can go be butthurt at someone else."

"I see." Most of the teasing faded from Anna's tone, only to return in an almost nervous grin. "Dean … do you remember … that night in the Impala?"

"Yeah," Dean agreed readily. "That was nice."

"Nice?" she echoed, raising an eyebrow. "Well, I'm glad you think so. I enjoyed myself too." She grimaced. "At least, I seem to know that I did. I remember every detail, but it's hard to recapture the feeling."

Dean opened his mouth, wanted to ask if she wished she were human again, but she continued quickly, as if she anticipated the question.

"I just wanted to know if you remember this?" She lifted her hand and reached for his right shoulder.

Dean's hand shot out automatically, grabbing her wrist and stopping her.

She gave him a surprised and questioning look. "Did you ever wonder about it?" she asked, undaunted. "Why you have that mark?"

Dean shrugged, last night darkening his thoughts. "I used to think it was Michael's way of trying to put a leash on me, but they never said anything about it. They would have. Zachariah would have thrown it in my face. So I figured that pulling a soul out of Hell had to leave some kind of mark. Seemed like a small price to pay."

"Does Sam have a mark?" Anna asked innocently, taking her hand back.

Dean clenched his teeth. "No, but it wasn't his soul that was pulled out, it was his body."

"His soul followed eventually."

"What does it matter to you?" he said, more harshly than he wanted to. "Why does it matter at all?"

She actually backed off, looking chagrined. "Honestly, I'm not sure. It just fascinates me. From what I know, there was a whole battalion of angels involved in your rescue, and yet, somehow, in the end there was only him. Only Castiel." Her eyes took on an almost feverish light, and she seemed on the verge of speaking several times, but kept holding back, until the need to ask apparently grew too strong. "Do you remember your rescue?"

Dean looked away. "The last thing I remember is digging my hands into some poor sucker's open chest and pulling out—" He had intended to shock her, but ended up making himself gag instead.

She reached out again, but this time she merely reached for his hand, holding it for a moment to show her sympathy.

Touched by an angel. Dean calmed down. "Next thing I knew I was digging my way out of my own grave." He gave her a warning look. "And I don't care; the less I remember the better. I don't want to know about the hows or whys."

Anna nodded, understanding and relenting.

"I can remove it, you know," she said quietly, almost reluctantly.

He looked at her, a little wide-eyed, surprised at her offer.

"It's just a scar," she explained.

"No," Dean replied slowly. "But thanks for the offer."

The moment was heavy, suffocating. "Anyway," Dean said quickly, clearing his throat. "You gonna ask for forgiveness or not?"

He managed to surprise her again, but her expression changed quickly to one of determination. "I said I wouldn't."

"Okay then," he replied casually. "No forgiveness for you."

She was provoked, her eyebrows lowering. "Dean Winchester, can you forgive me for trying to murder you and your family?"

Dean almost burst out laughing, but managed to restrain himself. _My life, man._

"Well," he said instead, dragging it out. "The demand for forgiveness has skyrocketed lately ... I don't know why that is, but I suppose if I hold out on a few of the more dickish of your brothers, I'll have enough for you."

By the look on her face, she really hadn't expected him to actually forgive her.

"As long as you don't do it again," Dean amended.

"I promise," she said, a little bewildered, but with gratefull eyes. Impulsively, she leaned in, and he was alarmed, but all she did was place a quick, sweet kiss on his cheek.

Then she stood up, and he followed her, brushing himself off and stretching sore muscles in a way she didn't need to.

Anna closed her eyes with a look of concentration on her face.

"Something wrong?" Dean asked.

"No," she answered without opening her eyes. "Just letting Gabriel know I'm leaving. I wanted to talk to Castiel, but he seems busy. We can talk when he comes home."

"Busy? Gabriel? What's going on?" Something like dread filled Dean's chest.

Anna opened her eyes. "Gabriel was coming to see you, and Balthazar and I asked if we could join him. He vouched for us to Father, so I thought I'd better … Dean?"

Dean was already walking briskly back towards the house.

"Goodbye, Dean Winchester! Take care of yourself!" she shouted after his retreating back.

Gabriel and Balthazar and Anna. Were they here for Castiel? Already? Dean wasn't ready for that!

But when he entered the living room there was no air of imminent departure. In fact, things seemed very laidback. Dean stood in the doorway, breathing hard and ready to fight, but there was no need.

Sam was lounging on the sofa with a beer, Bobby was, by the sound of it, in the kitchen. Balthazar sat idly next to Sam, and Gabriel and Castiel sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by Lego blocks.

Gabriel seemed to be building a big, yellow dick, complete with blue balls. Castiel sat half-buried in Lego bricks and was working to complete the church that had stood untouched in the corner for two days.

"Dean," Balthazar greeted him leisurely. He had crossed his legs at the ankles and placed his hands behind his head. "Long time no see. You look like you've been out playing in the dirt."

Dean smiled sarcastically. "And you look gay. Welcome back."

The blonde angel inclined his head.

Finally calming down, Dean leaned on the doorway. "Nice dick," he said to Gabriel, who flashed him a grin.

"I'm making it in Michael's likeness."

Sam rose from the sofa with a groan, like he was stiff from sitting too long. How long had the angels been here?

"I assume you want a beer," Sam asked.

"Sounds great, thanks."

"So did you talk to Anna?" Gabriel asked.

Dean nodded.

Sam came back from the kitchen with an open beer for Dean. "Anna? What did she want?"

Dean accepted the bottle gratefully and took a long drink before replying. "She wanted to appologise. You know, for trying to kill our parents."

"That's great. Did we forgive her?"

Dean shrugged. "Yeah. We're okay now. I even got a kiss on the cheek. I feel all respectable."

And then Gabriel's Lego phallus exploded, several bricks hitting Gabriel in the face. "My dick!" he exclaimed.

Behind him, Castiel was bristling, glaring at the Lego clenched in his own little fists.

Dean had no idea what was wrong, but a glance at Sam told him that his little brother's big brain was working on something.

Sam stepped over, pushing Lego away with his feet to give himself room to stand, and picked Castiel up, shaking a couple of stubbornly clinging Legos off him before settling the angel in his arms.

"Cas, look at me," he said. Castiel continued to stare stubbornly at his hands. "Look at me," Sam repeated, waiting patiently until Castiel sullenly complied.

Dean began to feel like he was outside looking in again.

"Anna is not a mermaid, okay?" Sam said intently. It was absurd. "And neither are you."

Dean spread his hands. "We've hit the twilight-zone, people. Anybody else want to confess their delusions? Balthazar, you know you're not a unicorn, right?"

"I'm not?"

Dean caught Sam's eye. "Why does Cas think he's a merbaby?"

"Mertoddler," Gabriel corrected him from the floor, where he had already begun to rebuild his yellow dick.

Dean crossed to the sofa, dumped down on it and took another swig of his beer. "I swear you are all crazy."

Sam was cradling Castiel, one large hand splayed over his back just under his wings, and the sight made Dean's insides squirm with jealousy. He didn't notice the sly, narrow-eyed look Sam sent him.

"Anybody else want something to drink?" Sam asked suddenly, and for some reason he locked eyes very meaningfully with Gabriel.

"I've heard you have juice. I could go for some juice," Gabriel said.

"We do have juice!" Sam said in an exaggerated manner. "I'll get juice."

He came around Gabriel and put Castiel resolutely down on Dean's lap, immediately moving to the kitchen.

For a moment, hunter and angel just stared at each other. Castiel's wings were wrapped closely around his shoulders.

"Hey, Cas. Haven't seen you all day. What've you been up to?" Dean asked hoarsely.

"Playing with Bobby," Castiel replied, a little high pitched. "We threw a ball."

"Was it fun?"

"Uh-huh."

"That's great."

God, he wished someone else would say something.

It cost Dean much more than the simple action warranted to lift his hands and pull Castiel close to his chest. Cas felt like a violin string pulled taut, and he breathed very carefully in and out, but he didn't resist. Dean could feel the angel's heartbeat thrumming against his fingertips.

Sam and Bobby came in from the kitchen, Sam with juice for Gabriel. They sat down, and after a little while conversation picked up again. Dean didn't participate beyond the occassional comment when one was required of him.

Then, in the middle of a longer pause, Gabriel rose from the floor. Without a word he approached Dean, leaned forward and placed two fingers to Castiel's temple. With a sigh, the little angel fell asleep, his brow smoothing out and his wings falling limp.

"What did you do?" Dean asked, placing a hand on Castiel's forehead, unreasonably worried.

"It's better if he doesn't know that you know yet," Gabriel replied cryptically.

"Know what?" Dean said angrily.

"I'm going to show you what happened when God returned to Heaven."


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's notes:** What can I say? It's been five months. It's inexcusable. Here's another chapter.

Check out RainDragonX's super cool drawing of Castiel reading his story book! It's on deviantart, just search for "Burn so brightly". (I can't believe I have fanart. It's like I died and went to Heaven.)

**Chapter specific summary:** _"He tried to tear his own wings off," Dean said, voice rising just a little. "What's wrong with them?"_

* * *

><p>Sam sat up straighter in his chair. "Show us?"<p>

Gabriel nodded.

Balthazar rose from the couch. "I'll just put Castiel to bed, then," he said, reaching out for the little angel. Dean seemed to have to struggle with himself to actually hand Cas over.

"Where can I stow him?" Balthazar asked, holding Cas as if he had never held a child in his life. Castiel was out for the count, though, and didn't seem to mind being mostly upside down.

"Upstairs, second door on the left," Bobby answered.

Balthazar disappeared.

"Well?" Dean demanded impatiently of Gabriel.

Gabriel looked around at the three of them. "I hope you're sitting comfortably. You're about to experience 4D cinema like you've never smelled it before."

"We're ready," Dean said, louder this time, making Gabriel scowl.

"Fine. Here we go." He snapped his fingers.

Sam's head filled with light, and for a moment he was deaf and blind. He lost track of his body. When the light faded, the scene before his eyes had changed.

_The sun shone down mercilessly on a huge, dry courtyard of sand-coloured stone. It was empty and barren, except for a few stubborn, twisted trees, standing alone in the few spots of shadow available. At the far end of the courtyard Sam could make out gates, and beyond them, blurred by the heat and the distance, the bulbous spires of a white palace._

_Castiel knelt on the ground, hands clutching his chest where Dean had plunged in the silver knife. The wound must be healed though, because there was no trace of blood. He looked exhausted. Sam caught sight of a familiar red sigil drawn on the nearest wall. Did that mean the souls were back in Purgatory? Castiel was staring sightlessly at the ground, where grains of sand trickled past in the wind. Sam moved closer, or Gabriel moved him closer, and he realised that Castiel was muttering to himself, fast and low, but intently, like he was speaking to someone. The words were unintelligible, perhaps not words at all._

_Slowly, a thin, high-pitched shriek grew in the air. Castiel flinched. It rose in volume relentlessly, until Sam's head was aching with it. He recognised it as the sound of pure angel voices, unfiltered by vessels, so why did the sound make Castiel cover his ears and cry out like it was paining him? The angel let himself fall sideways, rolled onto his back and arched sharply, face screwed up in agony and hands pressed hard to his ears._

_Sam wished he could have done the same, but he couldn't feel his own body, couldn't lift his hands. The noise was becoming unbearable when it stopped abruptly. Castiel collapsed, chest heaving, hands falling limply to the ground. Blood trickled from his ear._

_Chuck was standing in the shadow of a tree. He came forward unhurriedly. Castiel struggled to roll over onto his stomach, pushing himself up on all four and then to his knees, where he remained, swaying slightly. He looked up at God with tired eyes._

_"You resurrected them all," Castiel said, words thick in his dry mouth. "You even let Michael out of the cage."_

_Chuck stopped in front of the angel. "I brought him home, where he belongs."_

_Castiel bowed his head, eyes narrowed. "He should be punished."_

_Chuck didn't reply at once. "Why?"_

_Castiel glanced up with contempt in his expression. "He nearly destroyed the world. He would have, if it hadn't been for the Winchesters. And Raphael attempted the same thing. They have no respect for your creation."_

_Chuck's brow furrowed in a gentle expression of disagreement. "They were trying to create paradise on Earth."_

_"Because they were bored," Castiel growled. "Not for any benefit of mankind's."_

_"And you," Chuck said quietly, his voice very deep and very old. "Why did you nearly destroy the world, Castiel?"_

_The angel blinked, confused. "I didn't ..."_

_"By shifting the world's water supplies you were rapidly changing the ecosystem. Did you ever stop to look at the massive extinction you were causing in the oceans? Or the way shifting values away overnight was creating poverty where there had been prosperity, causing panic and riots? How long do you think it would have been before the planet's foundations began to creak and move?"_

_Castiel frowned, clearly provoked, but he was breathing faster, and his eyes were a little wider, like God's words were getting to him. "I was in control! Nothing was beyond my power. Order would have come from chaos."_

_"No, Castiel, take a moment to think!" Chuck said, raising his voice. He stopped himself, and continued in a more controlled tone."Who would have sustained this order you were creating? To whom would you have given the power to maintain equality? A group of men? A single man? Someone who would not be corrupted, someone who would always make the right decisions? And would the people accept their leaders?" He was silent for one, deadly moment. "Would you have led them yourself? A forceful God, keeping his naughty, unruly children on a short leash?"_

_Castiel was becoming increasingly distressed as he listened, blotches of angry red appearing in his cheeks. "I … I would have … I was going to –"_

_"You were running blind!"_

_"I was trying to help!"_

_God glowed in the sun, while Castiel bowed under the weight of the light. The angel's chest was heaving, but Chuck didn't appear to be breathing at all._

_"Michael will be punished, Castiel. He will come to understand his mistake. As I hope you are beginning to understand yours."_

_Castiel did not reply._

_Chuck's expression melted into something more tender and sorrowful. He knelt down and placed a hand on the angel's shoulder. "You feel so much, and it hurts you. I want you to pray to me, Castiel."_

_Castiel gritted his teeth. "No," he said, and the word was small and choked._

_"Reveal yourself to me, let my light shine in you and heal your wounds. Please, child," Chuck appealed._

_"I did pray. You weren't there," Castiel ground out. "Sam and Dean prayed to you. We begged for your help! We faced odds no one should ever face alone, and you weren't there!" He staggered to his feet, his voice rising in volume. "You have no right to lecture me. Where were you when the world burned? Where were you then?" _

_Chuck rose slowly and stood immovable, but when he spoke next it seemed to be with great reluctance. "I was there in you."_

_The world seemed to grind to a halt around them, the wind dying down._

_"You were the help I sent them," Chuck continued, his voice echoing in the sudden emptiness. "You were the answer to Sam and Dean's prayers."_

_All colour drained from Castiel's face, his pupils dilated, and he began to shake, every limb quaking so badly that Sam was surprised the angel remained standing. He took a step backwards, ready to run, to take flight, and massive black wings sprouted from his back, his eyes flickered up to take them in, and instead of rising into the air, he stumbled over his own feet and crashed to the ground. Castiel twisted around, sinking both hands into one wing and dragging it before his eyes, a scream of horror erupting from his throat._

_Another scream followed closely on the first, shaping itself into a single word,_

_"WHY?"_

_"I didn't choose the colour, Castiel. It just is," Chuck said sadly._

_"NO!"_

_Castiel tore at his wings, pulling out handfuls of feathers, clawing at them like they were poisonous. Chuck quickly knelt down and pried the angel's hands away. With a cry of rage and despair, Castiel let light blast from his hands, but God was just as fast, lifting his own hands and containing the outburst. Between their palms the light crackled and roared, trapped energy fighting to escape._

_"That's enough, Castiel," God said in his fathomless voice, and the light grew to envelop the angel on the ground._

Sam blinked. He was back in Bobby's living room. Balthazar had returned and was sitting on the couch. Gabriel lay draped over the remained of the couch, with his head in Balthazar's lap and his legs dangling over the edge of the armrest.

Sam had thought there would be some lingering impression, heat on his face, his eyes stinging from the light, sand in his mouth, anything, but he was physically unchanged by what he had seen. Just shocked.

"I arrived moments later," Gabriel said to the ceiling. "Little Cas was sitting in a pile of his own clothes, confused as hell." He smiled, just a quick tug at the corners of his lips. "And the rest you know."

"We don't know squat," Bobby said. "I've got a couple hundred questions left to ask you two. Like why the hell is Cas a kid? How can God take a man with so much unresolved crap hanging over him and turn him into something incapable of dealing with or even understanding any of it?"

Balthazar and Gabriel exchanged glances, and a small, mischievous spark came into their eyes. "It's brilliant, actually," Balthazar answered Bobby. "Kids are resilient in ways adults are not, and they've got tunnel vision. It's all cartoons and candy and race cars. Cas gets to run around and be a kid, while his subconscious begins the process of integrating all the baggage. By the time he's grown again, he'll be ready to deal."

At Bobby's sceptical expression, Gabriel smiled. "I didn't think it would work either, but it's going great. He's not even troubled by the wings anymore."

"What's wrong with his wings?"

Everyone turned to look at Dean, who had neither moved nor spoken until now. Sam felt a flutter of apprehension in his stomach as he looked at his older brother. He knew that look. Any provocation, and Dean would explode, probably violently.

"He tried to tear his own wings off," Dean said, voice rising just a little. "What's wrong with them?"

There was a moment of tense silence. Gabriel sat up and swung his feet around to place them on the floor.

"Only one other angel has ever been known to have black wings," he said finally, eyes on his own hands, folded on his knees.

No one named him. There was no need.

"They changed the day he fell," Gabriel continued, eyes far away. "They had always been white as snow."

Dean rose from the couch. "So that's it then?" he asked, voice carefully low. Sam wished Dean would shout; he was safer when he vented his anger than when he contained it. "He's the new Lucifer, is that the idea?"

Both Gabriel and Balthazar flinched.

"Well?" Dean demanded, and his tone was like iron.

Gabriel gave Balthazar a pushy look, and the blonde relented. He had his arms crossed over his chest and looked supremely uncomfortable. For a long time he seemed to be struggling for words, until he finally gave up.

"Yes," he said simply. "That's what everyone thinks. No one wants to say it out loud, but they don't exactly bother to mask their thoughts."

"And what about you two?" Dean asked, eyes boring into them. "What do you think it means?"

Gabriel looked up at him, and for the first time, he almost looked scared. In the end he only averted his eyes again. No answer was given.

"Screw you," Dean said slowly. Sam hadn't seen his brother in this state of cold rage since the night he killed Azazel. "Screw every last one of you cold, selfish cowards."

Gabriel's eyes narrowed. He gritted his teeth and looked up again, but Dean had already turned and was walking out of the room.

"Hey!" Gabriel shouted at his retreating back. "We're here, aren't we?"

They heard Dean take the stairs at a run.

Balthazar sat up restlessly. "Is Cassie safe with him when he's like that?" he asked, and Sam was impressed by the worry in his tone.

"Couldn't be safer," Bobby answered. He was looking at the place where Dean had disappeared.

"It's not what Dean thinks," Gabriel said almost pleadingly. "I like Cas. I respect him for fighting for what he believes in. Dean even whittled down the stick in Castiel's ass, so he's much more fun now. Heck, I feel ..." He stopped himself, and Sam was suddenly burning with curiosity. Gabriel, the all-powerful, with his wall of laughter between himself and the world. What was throwing him off balance? What was he hiding?

Balthazar was staring discontentedly ahead. "We've changed. I didn't use to feel ... love ... like you do. Angels feel loyalty and the weight of tradition, and sometimes there's a bit of rage or smug superiority, all there to keep us in line, keep us nice and brainwashed."

Gabriel frowned at him, but didn't speak.

"When I was reborn in Heaven," Balthazar continued. "I looked around, and I could tell that in a Host of thousands, only a bare handful had felt what I felt, and knew what I knew." He glanced at Gabriel. "We're not like the others anymore."

"Enough," Gabriel said quietly. He slipped off the couch and stretched half-heartedly, his back to the party. "It's time we got back to work. They'll think we're slacking."

Sam and Bobby exchanged glances. They were dealing with two unhappy angels, that was for sure.

"Hang on," Sam said, standing up as well. "I have a question too."

Gabriel turned around and tried to grin like his old self. It didn't quite work. "You mean why aren't you rocking yourself in a corner? Where did the fireworks in your head go?"

"Yeah." Sam ran a hand through his hair. "Did Chuck do something to me?"

Gabriel nodded. "Think of it as a jedi mind trick. Whenever you're about to dredge up the bad memories –" He passed one hand in front of Sam's face. "—_These are not the droids you are looking for_."

"Couldn't he just have removed it?" Sam asked. "Made me forget? I mean, I'm still having nightmares."

Gabriel shook his head. "You? You'll always have nightmares, with everything you've been through." He sighed. "Look, I get that it's tough, but what you experienced in the cage is a part of you now." A small, genuine smile lifted the corners of his lips. "You put yourself back together, Sam – that's a big accomplishment. Dad wouldn't undo that."

"Is it safe?" Bobby asked. "Death's wall didn't last very long. How do we know the memories themselves won't break through?"

"Death is not God. They have different powers. Death did the best he could with that wall, but the problem with traumatic stuff like that is if you don't let it breathe, it festers." He looked up at Sam again. "The occasional nightmare is how your mind integrates and learns to live with the stuff you've been through. There won't be any true breaches. Not from the inside, and not from the outside."

Sam nodded. "In that case, tell him thanks."

Gabriel winked playfully. "Tell him yourself. The prayer-hotline is always open."

Balthazar rose from the couch. "Are we off then?"

"Wait, wait, last question!" Sam said quickly, turning to Balthazar and holding up his hands. "And it's for you."

Balthazar looked sceptical. "Shoot."

Gabriel looked around. "I'll go on ahead." He caught Balthazar's eyes with a significant expression. "But you'd better be right behind me. I vouched for you."

Balthazar crossed his heart. "I'll be good. Scout's honour."

And Gabriel was gone.

"They're not big on goodbyes, are they, angels?" Bobby grumbled, getting up from his chair as the last of the party, and wandering into the kitchen, grabbing Gabriel's juice and Sam and Dean's beer bottles as he went.

Left alone with Balthazar, Sam sat down again, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "I just want to know ... you and Cas ... are you okay?"

Balthazar gave him a long look. "No, what you want to know is why are we okay. Or, why am I okay with him."

Sam looked up briefly and nodded.

Balthazar shrugged. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Sam laughed incredulously. "He stabbed you in the back. When you came in, Cas hid under the couch. He's been play-pretending that you weren't there all day."

Balthazar crossed his arms over his chest, biting his lip thoughtfully. "Cassie feels bad, but he'll get over it. Me ... I don't see what there is to be upset about. I betrayed him. As far as I'm concerned, I got what I deserved."

"What? How can you say that?" Sam shifted restlessly. "You were doing what you thought was right, trying to help him, save him from himself!"

"Yeeees, and I was going behind his back to do it," Balthazar said slowly, as if he was speaking to a child. He regarded Sam for a moment before chuckling. "Tell me, Sam, if your friend went behind your back while doing what he thought was right, in the interest of saving your uncooperative butt, wouldn't you have stabbed him?"

"No! Of course not."

Balthazar eyes widened in mock surprise. "But Samuel, you did."

Sam opened his mouth to protest before realisation struck him like thunder.

"I ..." In the end all he could manage was a lame, "That was different."

"Was it? Your friend betrayed you, and though he did so thinking he was saving your ungrateful ass, you decided the best course of action would be to give him a lumbar puncture with a very big needle." The angel grinned. "Don't worry, Sam, I'm sure he'll forgive you, but since I can tell you need a moment, I'll just let myself out. See you around, big boy." He waved and was gone.

Sam was going to need more than a moment. Balthazar's perspective was threatening to rearrange his head completely. Suddenly in need of fresh air and a change of scenery, Sam left the couch and headed outside. He passed Bobby on the porch and let the old hunter know he'd be back soon, setting off in a random direction without waiting for a reply. Some ways down the road he found a path leading into the forest, one that his feet could follow while his mind focused on other things. Balthazar's words had disturbed him, even while he was still unwilling to give them full credit. The two situations were not the same. Castiel had killed Balthazar because Balthazar had betrayed him to the Winchesters. Sam had been trying to stop a mad god. He had entered the factory, head full of fire, confused and in pain, but what he heard of the conversation in there was enough to convince him that Castiel was lost to them, so he attacked, the same way he would have attacked any supernatural menace.

But a niggling voice in the back of his head continued to spout Balthazar's nonsense.

_He was your friend. He was doing what he thought was right and you were trying to stop him. He betrayed you. You tried to kill him._

More than anything, Sam realised, he just wanted all the blame and hurt to go away. His feet came to a halt, and he looked around properly for the first time since he had set out from Bobby's. He was following a broad gravel path through a sparse forest. The air was fresh and the wind soothing, the trees vividly green. The world was beautiful and alive. Sam felt like he was standing on a threshold.

He had been Lucifer's puppet since before he was even conceived, but now he was free to choose his own path. It made sense to put down the weight of old guilt and blame as well, and move forwards with his shoulders free of burdens.

Slowly, he turned around so he was facing home. Was he capable of this? And was it even the right thing to do, really? He remembered the weeks he had suffered, the sleepless nights and burning days, the many nightmarish visions he had been subjected to by his own mind. Because of Castiel. Didn't Sam deserve some kind of justice?

But he was too honest not to admit to himself that his idea of justice sounded a lot like revenge.

To compound his doubt, he was reminded of the undeniable fact that the wall had been unstable from day one. It wouldn't have lasted. And Cas had said he would heal Sam, once it was all over, a promise he had stuck to, though Sam hadn't let him fulfil it.

Sam dug the tip of his shoe into the ground. He felt like he was being torn in two. Castiel had raised both Sam and Dean from Hell; he _knew_ what was down there, he knew what Sam would be forced to remember once the wall came down. How could he knowingly subject Sam to that?

To keep Dean safe. Of course. Once again, Sam was left with the knowledge that Castiel would always care more about Dean. Then again, didn't Sam feel the same way? Wouldn't he have hurt Castiel if it meant saving Dean?

Sam took the first couple of steps forwards, made himself put one foot in front of the other. He was good at that. Moving on. For Dean's sake. That was the answer. Castiel had hurt Sam to save Dean, now Sam would forgive Cas so that Dean could breathe more easily. Maybe, in time, the forgiveness would even be genuine. He began to walk back home, stomach still twisting with conflicting feelings, but his mind made up.

His new resolution must have been showing on his face, because Bobby looked oddly at him when he reached the house.

"You look different," the old hunter said, still comfortably seated in his chair on the porch.

Sam forced a smile. "Good different or bad different?"

Bobby raised an eyebrow. "I don't know. Want me to bring out the holy water?" It was a joke. Mostly.

"I'll take a glass with dinner, if you don't mind. I'm starving."

Bobby got up from his chair with a grumble, but he was smiling. "I'll see what I can rustle up."

Half an hour later, Sam peeked into the guest room upstairs. "Dean?"

Castiel was lying on his back on Dean's bed, looking more unconscious than asleep, and Dean was sitting on Castiel's mattress with his bag open next to him. He had pulled out all the contents of the bag, scattering dirty laundry, guns, knives, skin mags and soap all over the floor, but rather than organising things like he had supposedly intended to do, he was currently reading one of the magazines.

Sam raised an eyebrow.

"What?" Dean asked. "It has articles."

Sam chuckled. "Dinner's on. You coming down?"

Dean sat up and craned his neck to look indecisively at Castiel.

Sam opened the door properly and made himself comfortable in the doorway. "He'll be fine, Dean. You have time to eat."

Dean took another moment to agonize over his decision, before giving in to the promise of food. He struggled into a standing position, realised there were weapons and porn all over the floor and quickly stooped down to throw everything back in his bag.

Sam didn't wait for him, and sauntered back downstairs.

Sunday dinner was not a big or fancy affair, but Bobby promised that they would see some of his recent efforts in baking before the day was over. Dean didn't so much eat as shovel down the food at first, until Bobby gave him a dirty look and asked sarcastically if he was enjoying the meal. Dean quickly calmed down.

"He'll be fine, Dean," Sam repeated. "If he wakes up now, he'll come wandering downstairs. At worst he'll be a little pissy that Gabriel put him to sleep."

Dean agreed reluctantly.

Bobby lowered his fork and sat back. "You should have stuck around to hear what else the holy duo had to say, Dean. Apparently, Chuck fixed Sam's noggin."

Dean looked at Sam, surprised and pleased. "You mean you're all fine? Fine forever fine?" Sam nodded. "That's great! That's ... actually great!"

"Actually great?"

"Yeah! The kind of great our luck usually doesn't-" Dean was interrupted when a tremor passed through the floor beneath them.

There was a moment of silence in which they exchanged wondering glances, and then it came again, rattling the window pane and the glasses on the table. The next tremor made the radio come on, shifting wildly between stations before going into static.

"Ghosts?" Sam said automatically.

"This house is ghost proof," Bobby replied.

"Castiel!" Dean was out of his chair and running for the stairs in a moment.

Sam rose to follow him just as the bulb in the ceiling lamp exploded, showering him with sparks. He stumbled back, caught his feet on the chair and would have fallen if the kitchen counter hadn't caught him. Bobby was already hurrying after Dean, and Sam followed the moment he found his balance. They had barely reached the stairs when a scream rang through the house.

"SAM! BOBBY!"

They raced up the stairs and through a hallway full of broken light bulbs. The door to the guest room was wide open but it was a moment before they could make out anything in the darkness, a moment before they could see Castiel lying rigid in Dean's arms.

Light shone from around the hilt of the knife that was buried in Castiel's right wing. A dark stain was spreading on Dean's thigh. Blood.

Castiel's eyes were huge and almost luminously blue, focused on something far away with a look of terror.

Dean was speaking, low and urgent pleas that seemed to be falling on deaf ears. "Come on, Cas, wake up, come on. Cas, talk to me. What's happening to you?"

The knife was Dean's, taken from his bag which lay upended and emptied on the floor.

Sam's eyes slammed shut and he sent out a prayer that started as a silent cry of fear.

_Help, Gabriel!_

When he opened his eyes the ceiling was shaking, holy light pouring in through the blinds. Sam expected Gabriel to arrive with a crash, but he appeared in total silence, the light and the power gone in an instant, leaving Sam blinking in the dark before his eyes could adjust to the sudden change. By then, Gabriel was kneeling on the bed opposite Dean, cradling Castiel's head in both hands. In the worn jeans and old jacket, Gabriel should have seemed small and human, but his eyes were full of fury. He looked up at Dean.

"Hold him," he said simply, and the vanished power, barely restrained, trembled behind his words.

Dean quickly shifted Castiel around so that Dean could support him properly. Gabriel placed one hand around the hilt of the knife, gripping the wing in the other. His eyes began to glow. He pulled the knife out in one swift movement, making Castiel arch his back and shriek, the double voice like needles in Sam's ears. Next to him, Bobby sank to his knees with a groan. As soon as he was no longer paralyzed by pain, Sam reached out a hand to him, but the old hunter shook his head to signal he was alright, and struggled to his feet on his own.

Gabriel had covered the wound on both sides of the wing, and was pouring a steady stream of grace into his little brother. Castiel's eyes remained closed.

After too long, far too long, the light faded, and Gabriel let his hands fall. He touched Castiel's forehead again. "Wake up, little bro."

Castiel's eyes blinked open.

Gabriel raised a hand and snapped his fingers, and the light came on in the ceiling, the light bulb whole again. Castiel's eyes were red-rimmed. He pushed himself up shakily and crowded into Dean's chest, burying his face, his wings splayed stiffly, awkwardly away from his body. Dean held him close.

No one spoke. The silence seemed impossible to break. Finally, Gabriel rose from the bed and stalked out of the room. Sam followed him down the stairs and into the living room, where the archangel stopped for a moment only to start pacing back and forth. He continued this way until Bobby, Dean, and Castiel came down, then he stopped.

Dean curled up on the couch, still with Castiel cradled against his chest, and pulled Sam's duvet over them both.

After a moment of hesitation, Sam sat down on the floor, leaning against the couch and Dean's leg. Bobby sat down heavily in a chair, Gabriel straddled another, turning it with an angry movement. Still, no one spoke. Still, Sam's heart was pounding.

What had happened? Like Dean, Sam burned to understand what could cause Castiel to hurt himself like that.

"What happened?" Bobby said finally, and with that the barrier of silence slid away like water released from a dam, leaving them all free to breathe again.

Gabriel had been still as a statue until now, eyes fixed on Castiel. He didn't move, but his expression hardened. "Has anyone other than you three been in contact with Castiel after he came to Earth?"

It was an unexpected question, but in the end Sam shook his head. "I don't think so."

Gabriel turned his eyes on Sam, and his gaze was weighty with authority. "Has anyone come near him or been alone with him? Does anyone know that he's here?"

Sam, Dean and Bobby exchanged glances.

"No."

Gabriel's lips drew back from his teeth in a silent snarl. "Someone did! You're missing something! Think, you morons, who could come close enough to poison him?"

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Poison?" Dean echoed, the first stirrings of protective anger entering his voice.

Sam's mind was racing. They had been alone except for the angels that had visited today. There was Sheriff Mills, of course, but Castiel hadn't met her.

"Dean, are you sure Sheriff Mills couldn't have gotten to Cas somehow?" Sam sent Bobby an apologetic grimace; he didn't believe it was possible that she could have hurt Cas, but they had to check everything.

But Dean shook his head. "The only time I left her alone, I saw Cas myself. She never even knew he was here."

Bobby rolled his eyes like the whole line of inquiry was ridiculous, which, of course, it was. "Look," he said, "what kind of poison are we talking?"

Gabriel was studying Castiel again, making the little angel bury himself further into Dean's chest.

"The last of it burned up just as I touched the wound, but I tasted it. It was primal, full of rage and fear. It was giving Cas visions."

"Visions?" Sam asked, looking up at Castiel. "What kind of visions, Cas? What did you see?"

Castiel hid his face against Dean's neck.

Dean ran a hand over the little angel's hair. "You gotta talk to us, Cas. You have to tell us what's wrong."

"I wanna play," Castiel mumbled.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "We can't play now."

"I want to throw ball," Cas repeated stubbornly.

Gabriel looked away uncomfortably, before letting his head fall forward. "This is my fault. I knocked Cas out cold, gave the poison free reign. I trapped his grace, left him without his natural defence." He looked up, eyes shiny in the low light, and Sam was surprised. How upset, how tired, must Gabriel be to have tears standing in his eyes?

"I'm sorry, Cas."

"No one is blaming you," Bobby said. "You didn't know."

"Did you see what he saw?" Dean asked, expression hard.

"Nooo," Castiel whined, reaching up with distressed sounds and trying to pull Dean's head down, to make him look away from Gabriel. Dean pushed the angel's hands away, held them firmly in his own when Cas wouldn't let up.

Gabriel inhaled and exhaled heavily. "Not really, but I can read his mind."

Castiel twisted like he wanted to crawl out of his skin, tugged his hands free and wrapped his arms around his own head like he could shield his thoughts from Gabriel that way.

"And?" Dean was relentless, but he pulled Castiel closer, hands splayed out to cover as much of the angel as possible.

"There was bright light, and a feeling of rising up, shaking out his wings after being in a small, cramped space for a long time. Then he was looking down on fields, and a town off in the distance, and a church directly below. And there was blood and screaming in the air, not real, but ... I dunno ... in his head. Like he'd brought the carnage with him."

Castiel pulled back to hit Dean's chest with balled up hands. "I want to play! Play with me!"

"Stop it, Cas." Irritated, Dean tried to hold the angel still.

"Play with me, play with me!" Castiel yelled, head bowed and legs kicking to drive himself bodily into Dean.

"No. You're going to talk to us," Dean said, voice rising.

Castiel cried out in frustration and reached behind himself to grip his previously injured wing, yanking at it hard.

"Quit it!" Dean grabbed Castiel's hand and the offended wing. The angel jerked like he had been given an electric shock, and so did Dean. For a moment, their eyes glowed white, and then Dean pulled his hand away from the wing as if burned, and the light died.

"Woah."

Sam had jumped to his knees, Bobby was half out of his chair. Sam reached out and put a hand on Dean's arm. "What was that?"

Gabriel was looking sharply at them. "The wings are made of grace. You can't just put your hand to an open flame and not expect something to happen."

"It's okay," Dean said, voice gone hoarse. "It's not the first time."

Of course it had. Sam remembered his big brother straightening Castiel's abused wings at the mall, and the way Dean had leaned on the shopping cart afterwards, blinking like he'd gone blind. He remembered casually brushing stray feathers with a hand, and having to wait afterwards as the sun seemed to invade his eyes.

Castiel looked like he wanted to shrink down and hide under Sam's duvet?

"I get it now," Dean continued, and he met Castiel's fearful look with an unreadable one of his own. "You were Lucifer, rising out of the cage, except you have no idea what St. Mary's Convent look like. It's huge and square, not like a regular church. And that's not all you got wrong." He reached slowly past Castiel, taking a careful hold of a wing and pulling it forward for Cas to look at. "See these?" Castiel shook his head, didn't want to look. Dean looked up at Gabriel, and he was angry now. "They're not the mark of a fallen angel, or a traitor, and anyone who took two seconds to think about it would get that."

Dean tugged gently on Castiel's ear to make the angel look up at him. "You're not a fallen angel, not banished from Heaven, and if you're a traitor because you fought against the Apocalypse, then Gabriel is a traitor too."

Sam and Bobby turned to Gabriel. "Don't look at me," he said, a little too quickly. "My wings are as white as the Republican party."

"I think your wings are awesome," Dean continued. "Who'd want sissy, white wings when they can have rock and roll wings like these?"

But Castiel put his hands over his eyes and shook his head.

Dean fumbled for a moment to pull his shirt down from his shoulder and to pull up the sleeve of his t-shirt. "Look, Castiel." The use of his full name surprised the little angel into complying, and Dean held his gaze ruthlessly. "I was in Hell for forty years, and nothing in the pit burned me like you did. Lucifer is stone cold. You are nothing like him."

Castiel seemed to have stopped breathing, looking hungry, almost haunted, at the mark on Dean's shoulder. He made a choked sound of desperation and almost fell forward to put his hand over the mark. Dean flinched at the touch, but he brought a shaking hand up to cover Castiel's own.

"You're my angel, and my angel is good."

Castiel swayed, but Dean steadied him. He seemed unable to look up at Sam, Bobby and Gabriel, too embarrassed at the emotions he had revealed.

Gabriel rose slowly. "Well, I hate to say it, but Dean is right." He fidgeted. "I'd better go upstairs, let Dad know what has happened."

Sam rose as well. "We'll try to figure out how Cas got poisoned in the meantime."

Gabriel's eyes narrowed, like he could already imagine smiting the hell out of the culprit. "Let me know when you have." He gave Sam and Bobby a nod, and took one last lingering look at Castiel before he disappeared.

Bobby rose a moment later, patting Castiel on the head before heading off to clear the dinner table.

Dean licked his lips and glanced up at Sam. "You got any more of those fairytales, Sammy? Maybe we could hear one?"

Castiel smiled without opening his eyes.

"Sure," Sam said. "I can find one on my laptop."

"Just make sure it has a happy ending."

Sam read "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Snow White and Rose Red", to the gentle sounds of dishes being washed.

Sam glanced up every now and then and could never really tell whether Dean or Castiel were actually listening to him. Dean seemed lost in thought and Castiel's eyes were heavy-lidded and far away, but at least the angel stirred when the first story was done, and nodded happily when asked if he wanted another one. Dean remained oblivious.

After a while, Sam realised that Bobby was watching them from the doorway, watching Dean specifically, with a furrow in his brow. When the last story came to an end, Bobby came over to the couch and pulled Castiel off Dean's lap. The angel gasped in protest, but didn't actually try to escape, letting Bobby hold him.

"How do you feel about pie?" Bobby asked Cas seriously.

"Pie?"

"Pie."

"Dean likes pie."

"So I've heard. Shall we find some pie for Dean?"

"Yes."

They went back into the kitchen. Dean immediately got off the couch and headed outside. Sam was too surprised to call after him, only rousing when he heard the back door close. He went to the window, and saw his big brother walking away into the darkness. Sam ran after him, closing the back door as softly as he could. Bobby had distracted Cas for Dean's sake, but what was up with Dean?

The stars were out, and the salvage yard was quiet.

Sam found his brother sitting with his back against the wheel of the Impala. He didn't look up at Sam's arrival.

"What's up?" Sam asked.

Dean shrugged. "It was getting stuffy in there. Thought I'd clear my head."

"Been a busy day," Sam agreed, though silently calling bullshit. Before the angels showed up today, Dean and Cas had barely seen each other, Cas throwing a ball around with Bobby on the other side of the house while Dean worked on the car back here. Castiel's crisis seemed to have brought them together again, but had it resolved the thing that had caused the split in the first place?

"Something happened last night between you and Cas," Sam asked. "What was it?"

"Nothing," Dean replied, eyes on his hands.

Right then, Sam knew his best bet was to get Dean angry enough to lash out. Reasoning or pleading with him would only make him brush Sam off, but if he was angry, he was much more likely to blurt out whatever was on his mind. And it shouldn't be too difficult for Sam to stoke the anger under his big brother's skin.

Sam made his voice careless. "It's okay, you can tell me. Did you try to drown Cas in the bath tub?"

Dean shot to his feet immediately. "That's not funny!" he growled.

"I'm not laughing."

Dean lips trembled, in anger or something else, but he refused to look away and the moment devolved into a staring contest.

"What happened?" Sam asked again, putting weight on each syllable.

"Nothing happened," Dean repeated. "Get off my case."

Sam's eyes narrowed. "You're lying, Dean. And you know what? You can lie on the job, and you can lie to yourself, but you do not lie to me. Not after everything."

"I lie to you all the time," Dean snarled back. "And you're not exactly the right man to throw accusations. You were never going to tell me what Gabriel said to make you let Cas stay."

Sam was caught off guard by that, and couldn't keep it from showing on his face. He had hoped Dean had forgotten. "You didn't ask," he replied, his voice a little weaker.

"No, because I wanted to see if you'd remind me. Well, so much for no more secrets."

Sam's resolve hardened. "Alright then. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

For a brief second, Dean looked tempted, his eyes coming alive only to die again. He turned away. "I don't give a damn what that fairy told you. It's done."

Sam could have cursed, but he wasn't out of ammo yet. "You know what, I don't need to know what you did. I can guess. Cas isn't the only one who's been feeling your mood swings lately. On Wednesday, you were all ready to play house, all you wanted was to make things right with Cas, and now all you do is upset him and sulk!"

He expected Dean to protest, to say that he didn't sulk, to tell Sam to fuck off. Instead, Dean seemed to be wrestling with himself, his brow furrowed and his jaw set.

"It wasn't my fault," he finally said between clenched teeth. "It was instinct. You can't slam someone like that and not expect them to freak."

"What did he do?" Sam asked softly.

Dean moved restlessly on the spot, putting his hands on his hips, lifting them to run them through his hair and then letting them fall again.

"When I pulled Cas out of the bath on Saturday … he put his hand on my shoulder." Dean made a vaguely illustrating gesture. "And there was a lot of light and noise in my head, and I freaked and yelled at him." He licked his lips and swallowed, uncomfortable.

Okay. That couldn't possibly be the whole story.

"Sounds a bit like what Gabriel did when he showed us Heaven. Do you know what Cas was trying to do?"

Dean stared very stubbornly straight ahead. This then, was the crux of the tale.

"Was he trying to show you something?" Sam prompted carefully.

Dean sighed. "He has all these memories that don't make any sense to him." His voice grew stronger, some anger creeping into his tone. "I wish he would leave them alone. Kids aren't supposed to deal with that kind of –" He stopped himself abruptly and looked quickly at Sam.

So that was it. Feelings. From the depth of Sam's mind came the memory of Dean's harsh words earlier that Saturday night.

_"Was it really that hard to come up with an alternative method of communication? Simple sign-language too complicated for her?"_

Castiel, dutiful little mermaid that he was, had reached out and communicated. And Dean had rejected him.

"We'd be just fine," Dean said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself more than Sam, "if he would just leave the adult stuff for when Chuck fixes him. Why can't he just enjoy being a kid? How many angels ever get to experience that?"

Sam sighed and shook his head. He hadn't really considered the idea that maybe Castiel, as a child, was ill-suited to deal with his adult feelings for Dean. Of course Dean would know better than Sam how Cas was handling them, though Sam doubted whether Dean could see the matter clearly. And Cas didn't seem able to leave it alone. What was Chuck's plan? Was Castiel's preoccupation with his romantic feelings intended, or unforeseen?

On the other hand ...

"Dean ..." Sam chose his words carefully. "If Castiel loves you ... is that so bad? Maybe if you accepted what he's trying to tell you, he would settle down? Let him know you've heard him, and he might be satisfied to wait until he's grown up to act on his feelings."

Dean barked a short, bitter laugh.

"What's funny?" Sam asked.

"Trust you to know just the right thing to do. It's what I should have done from the fucking start, I know that, but it's too late now." Dean pushed gravel around with his foot, looking miserable.

"It's not too late."

"It is." Dean lifted his head, looked Sam straight in the eyes. "Sure, I can go in there and sit him down and tell him that yes, I know he has gay, adult feelings for me, but then what? What can I promise him, Sam? What can I give him in return?"

"If you don't feel the same way, it's better to let him know than to keep him hanging." It was easy to suggest it, because Sam didn't for a moment believe it was true.

"It doesn't matter what I feel!" Dean shouted. "Because he won't be here! He's going home!"

Sam was taken aback, and didn't reply.

Dean grimaced, pulling back a little. "We have him on loan," he said, volume normal again.

"So he's going back to Heaven. Doesn't mean we won't see him. I don't think he'd be able to stay away even if he wanted to."

But Dean shook his head. "Before the Apocalypse, the only angels on Earth were touching people on CBS. That's what we're going back to." Sam opened his mouth to protest, but Dean was faster, holding up a hand to stop him and pressing on. "Chuck told Bobby he had stepped in for the last time. That goes for the angels too, and you know it. Cas will be stuck up there, with his dick siblings who all think he's Satan point two, and we'll be here."

There was a core of tight emptiness growing in Sam's stomach.

"Deeeeean! Pieeeee!" Castiel's baby-voice called to them.

Sam didn't feel like laughing, but he couldn't seem to help the grin stretching his lips. He rubbed at his eyes and brow as if he could somehow smudge his own splintered emotions into something whole.

"Come on," Dean said, hand touching Sam's shoulder briefly as he walked past his little brother towards the house.

"Saaaaaaam?"

"We're coming!"

They came around the house, but before he ducked through the back door, Sam took a last, deep breath of fresh air to relieve the aching in his chest that would have to be hidden once he got inside. He thought he understood Dean better now, bottling up his feelings so that Cas could happily forget that he ever had to leave. But Sam wasn't willing to give up on the future just yet. He refused to accept that Chuck had thrown them together again only to separate them forever.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note:** I needed a chapter that would let the boys breathe for a moment before everything goes to hell, and so we have chapter 6. It's short and sweet.

Check out my tumblr and my livejournal for additional updates, like scenes that didn't make it into the story, and fanart from some incredibly talented people. Links on my profile.

* * *

><p>They had pie. Dean couldn't praise Bobby's cooking enough, and ate twice as much pie as everyone else, but that was okay. After a day of too many words and too many emotions, it was a relief to turn on the TV and drown in mindless entertainment for a while.<p>

The first time Sam yawned, Castiel disappeared. After a moment of alarm, they found him behind the sofa.

"No bed time!" he yelled up at them, suddenly obstinate.

"We can watch more TV tomorrow," Dean said. "Come out of there."

"No!"

Sam, Dean and Bobby looked at each other helplessly.

"Well, it's not unexpected," Bobby said, peering into the space where a pair of blue eyes were glaring up at them from inside a quivering mass of dark feathers. "I wouldn't want to sleep either after a dream like that."

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. "Then I'll stay up with him. Sammy can sleep upstairs for once."

Sam frowned, even though a night's sleep in a proper bed sounded amazing. "He might be able to stay awake all night, but I don't know that you will."

Dean barked a laugh. "We are the kings of all-nighters. I'll be fine."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Come wake me when you start nodding off. We can take turns."

"Okay." Dean reached both hands down to Castiel. "Did you hear that, featherhead? Now come help me make some coffee. We can watch cartoons until we go cross-eyed."

Two chubby arms appeared from out of the feathers, and Castiel let Dean haul him up.

Castiel's wings and hair were a mess from being squashed behind the couch, and he looked guarded and a little ashamed. Dean just smiled at him. "Say goodnight to Sam and Bobby."

Castiel wiggled out of Dean's arms and onto the sofa, to give first Bobby and then Sam a hug. Sam let himself linger for a moment with Castiel's silky-soft cheek against his own. The angel's body was so small.

Somehow, today's crisis had given Sam a good kick forwards on the road to true forgiveness. What retribution of his could have caused more harm than Castiel was causing himself with his guilt? And now that he had what amounted to the justice he had wished for, Sam found it tasted bad.

Dean carried Castiel into the kitchen in search of caffeine, leaving Sam and Bobby to shuffle off to their beds.

"Can I have coffee?" Castiel said in the kitchen.

"If I give you coffee, will you stop trying to find out where we hid the beer?" Dean replied.

Sam followed Bobby up the stairs, his bag hanging over his shoulder. A little while later, he was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. Downstairs, the TV was on again. Sam spit into the sink and rinsed his mouth, and when he looked up, Bobby was standing outside the open door.

"I figured Dean needed some time alone, but I didn't know what it was about," the old man confessed, voice kept low to avoid being heard below. "And then you go after him and come back with your head hanging. So what did he tell you?"

Sam shrugged. "That after this is over, we might not see Cas again. Not until we die."

"I see," Bobby replied after a moment.

Sam wiped his mouth and hands and stepped out of the bathroom. "Night, Bobby."

"Goodnight, son."

Sam went to bed with Bobby's melancholy half-smile as comfort.

Thanks to the superior comfort of a proper bed, he woke feeling much better the next morning. Except he was supposed to have been woken up by Dean sometime in the night. Sam sighed, got out of bed and pulled his pants on before tiptoeing downstairs, avoiding the creaky step on the way down.

Dean lay sprawled on the sofa, fast asleep and snoring. Castiel was trying to stealthily manoeuvre a blanket over him, but didn't have the reach to do more than lift and throw the same corner at him over and over. Sam came up behind the angel, took hold of the blanket and spread it out over Dean.

"Good morning," he whispered.

Castiel looked up at him, tipping his head way back. "Hello, Sam."

"Has Dean been asleep long?"

"No."

Considering Castiel's ability to do literally nothing for hours, Sam wasn't sure how accurately the angel measured time, but he let it go. He had caught sight of a piece of paper lying mostly hidden underneath a bookshelf. He pulled it out and discovered it to be Castiel's very first drawing; a smiling yellow dinosaur that Sam vaguely remembered having seen adorning cups, pacifiers, rattles and other things at the mall where they'd been shopping. A logo, almost perfectly replicated.

"Look what I found, Cas," he said absentmindedly. Something was bothering him about the drawing. It felt significant somehow.

Castiel tore himself from staring adoringly at Dean's drooling face, but when he saw the drawing he let out a little gasp and ran into the kitchen. Sam followed, unsure of whether to be alarmed or not. There were crayons scattered all over the kitchen table, and the sketch book lay open. Castiel jumped up so he was hanging over the side of the table, grabbed the sketch book and slid back to the floor. Then he ran to the nearest cupboard, practically threw the sketch book inside, shut the door and turned around to look innocently up at Sam.

But Sam had already gotten a glimpse of the latest masterpiece, and it had made him realise what the first drawing had been trying to tell him. "What were you drawing, Cas? Don't I get to see?" he asked, heart pounding.

Castiel's wings spread out in a rush, covering the cupboard, and he looked at Sam with wide eyes as if to say "I have no idea what you're talking about". Sam raised an eyebrow at him, and the innocent look became a little strained.

"Look, I promise I won't tell Dean," Sam said, crouching down. "But I think it's kind of important that I take a look at your drawings."

Castiel sighed.

Sam put up a puppy-eyed look of his own. "Please?"

Castiel twisted his upper body back and forth, trying to hold out, but in the end he gave up with a scowl, folding in his wings and stepping aside with his arms crossed over his chest.

Sam retrieved the sketch book from the cupboard and sat down at the kitchen table, placing the old drawing next to the new. After a second, Castiel followed him, standing on his tip toes in order to see what Sam was doing, so Sam lifted the angel up and put him down on his lap. The last sketch, in black crayon, was a drawing of Dean, fast asleep. The lines weren't exactly steady, and the proportions were a bit off, but the drawing nonetheless showed talent far beyond that of a two-year-old; Dean was immediately recognisable.

"You're good," Sam said, and Castiel squirmed, hands pushed down between his knees and face growing pink.

Sam closed the book and opened it again on the very first page. At the top of the book was the jagged line where the page with the dinosaur had been torn out. The contrast between that first drawing and the next few pages couldn't have been greater. It began with numerous sketches in black crayon, all of the same structure, simplistic, but recognisable as a church. Slowly the images became more detailed, more colourful, seemingly more skilfully rendered, but Sam knew better now. Castiel hadn't improved; he was already the perfect imitator, rather it was the motif which had become slowly clearer to the artist. Sam conjectured that while Castiel's grace was actively fighting the poison, the hallucinations had probably been brief and hard to recall in the morning.

"Why did you draw these?" Sam asked.

Castiel looked up at Sam and pointed at his own head.

"Because you were dreaming about looking down on St. Mary's." The drawing looking nothing like St. Mary's, but then Dean had said as much yesterday, after his brief mind-meld with Cas. What we have never seen, our minds cannot accurately reproduce in dreams.

Castiel nodded slowly, looking like he was ready to run if the conversation got any more uncomfortable. Sam held him a little closer.

"But why draw it? Why didn't you tell us about the dreams?"

"I didn't understand," Castiel said, his voice so clear, for a moment he didn't sound like a child at all, though of course that had been the very problem. Over and over he had sketched out the increasingly detailed vision that repeated itself every night, in an attempt to comprehend, but the tools he needed to make the connections had been locked away by God. Even the logic that would have made him tell Sam, Dean and Bobby what he was experiencing hadn't been available.

Sam continued to turn the pages, and Castiel began to grow restless and uncomfortable. In the end he climbed down from Sam's lap and ran back into the living room to sit down with his back against the sofa. Sam let him go. One of Dean's arms had fallen over the edge, hand hanging limply, and Castiel leaned his forehead against it very carefully.

When Sam finally closed the book and looked up, Dean had opened his eyes and was running his fingertips through Castiel's hair. "Looks like I fell asleep," he said, and gently tweaked Castiel's nose. "You shouldn't have let me, Cas."

Castiel bumped his head against Dean's hand and didn't say anything.

Dean stretched luxuriously, groaning.

"Dean," Sam called softly through the wide-open door.

Dean looked up and found him. "Hey. I'm surprised you manage to stand upright after sleeping so long on this couch. We need to get you a mattress."

"Dean ... I think I know who poisoned Cas."

Dean sat up, immediately awake.

Sam sighed. "Cas, will you go wake Bobby? Tell him we're making breakfast."

Cas looked hopeful. "Pancakes?"

"Sure, Cas, we'll make pancakes."

Bobby took his time, so when he finally came wandering downstairs, it was to find a big stack of pancakes waiting for him.

He breathed deeply and smiled. "When I get old and helpless, I'd like to hire you two to cook and clean for me."

"And me!" Castiel cried. "I helped."

"S'true," Dean added, popping a stray piece of pancake into his mouth. "Cas set the table." The Winchesters had decided not to mention the two broken plates and the chipped mug.

Bobby gave Cas a pat on the head when he passed the angel to get to his chair, and Castiel nodded in satisfaction.

They ate in silence at first, until Bobby was thoroughly convinced that something was wrong and called them on it.

Dean was moodily stabbing his pancakes with his fork. "Sam thinks he's got a lead on who poisoned Cas, but he won't say."

"I'm still trying to work it out in my head," Sam said in apology.

"You can work it out out loud, can't you?" Bobby asked.

Sam sat back in his chair with another sigh before closing his eyes and folding his hands. "Hey, Gabriel, we figured out what happened to Cas. Wanna come down?"

Seconds ticked by, a full minute passed, and no Gabriel. "We have pancakes," Sam added on his second try, but there was no response.

"Guess he's busy," Bobby said. "Now share."

Sam grabbed the sketchbook from the counter. Earlier, he had carefully removed the drawing of Dean and given it to Castiel to do with what he wanted. Now he found the dinosaur and passed it around.

"Cas drew this on Wednesday, and then Thursday morning, we get our first church."

"And it's been nothing but ever since," Bobby added.

Sam hesitated, glancing at Castiel, who glared back at him. "... Exactly, which means Castiel's first hallucination happened Thursday night."

Dean cottoned on. "Which means he was poisoned sometime on Thursday."

Bobby was running his hand through his beard thoughtfully. "Must have been when you three were out shopping. Did you ever lose track of the toddler?"

"I'm right here," Castiel grumbled.

Dean's eyes grew wide as he came to the same conclusion that Sam had already come to.

"THAT LITTLE BRAT!"

"Sorry!" Castiel shouted, covering his head in his hands.

"No, no, not you," Dean amended quickly.

Sam quickly filled Bobby in on the incident with the little girl. "They must have been Djinn. The mother had tattoos, and they had blue eyes, and Djinns' poison is transmitted through touch; the little girl grabbed Cas' wings. It fits."

"And you were ready to blast her to Purgatory," Dean said, looking at Cas with wide eyes. "If you knew what she was why didn't you say?"

Castiel picked at the hem of his t-shirt. "Cause it was wrong. You said so."

Dean got a pained look on his face as he tried to remember what he might have said on the occasion. Sam thought he could recall.

"Cas, Dean didn't know she was a monster. He only meant that it is wrong to hurt normal little girls."

"Oh," said Castiel and looked miserable.

"What was her game, though?" Bobby mused out loud. "Are Djinn kids naturally mean or did she react to an angel in particular? Or did her mom make her do it?"

Unfortunately, no amount of speculation could bring them close to an answer, and eventually there was nothing to do but close the subject and get the dishes done.

Once the kitchen was tidy, Dean found Bobby behind his newspaper. "Hey, Bobby, that old lake still out there?"

Bobby lowered the paper with an unimpressed expression. "Course it is, idjit. Ever heard of a lake getting up and taking off before?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Whatever. What say we pack some lunch and hike out there? We could swim."

"But Dean, but Dean," Castiel yelled, running up to him. "I can't swim!"

"Then we can teach you."

"And my wings will get wet!"

"Not if we're careful."

"And I don't have anything to wear."

Dean just looked at him for a moment, before looking around at Sam and Bobby. "Anyone other than Shirley Temple have any objections?"

"My name is Castiel."

"I'm for it," Sam said. "And Cas can swim in his briefs."

Bobby shrugged. "I wouldn't mind stretching my legs."

So it was decided. Bobby and Castiel made sandwiches, Sam and Dean packed the rest of the essentials, and just half an hour after the suggestion had been made, the four of them were walking down the dusty road where Sam had had his epiphany the day before.

They were all alone out here, surrounded by tall, twisting green trees. Apart from their footfalls there was only the wind and the birds to be heard. Bobby didn't have many neighbours, so they could be relatively certain not to meet anyone, but they kept a careful lookout anyway, in case Castiel needed to hide. The angel was jogging to keep up with the men, but he didn't seem to tire. Even so, Sam eventually lifted Cas up and let him ride on his shoulders.

It grew hot quickly, but the wind was strong and took the sting out of the sun.

They walked in comfortable silence for a while, until they reached a cross in the road that sent Sam down memory lane. Prompted by the bittersweet nostalgia of the place, he told Castiel about how he and Dean had first been introduced to Bobby. How John had taken them here several times when he needed help in his hunt for the Yellow-Eyed Demon. The boys would play in the yard while John and Bobby were inside, talking shop. Once, John had gotten what he thought was a hot lead, and had rushed Sam and Dean to Sioux Falls to beg Bobby to look after them for just a few days. Bobby had agreed only reluctantly, and at first it had been pretty awkward between the three of them, but then Dean had taken an interest in Bobby's cars, and Sam had buried himself in Bobby's books, and the realisation of all their mutual interests had broken the dam between them.

"Dad didn't come get us for nearly two weeks, but Bobby never complained." Sam smiled and breathed deeply of the familiar air.

"I didn't complain to you," Bobby said.

"We went for so many walks in these woods," Dean said like he was only now remembering, looking around with renewed emotion.

By the time they came to the lake they were more than ready for a cooling swim. They spread their things out on the bank, and Bobby settled down against a tree, folding his hands on his stomach and pulling his cap down to shade his eyes. Sam and Dean got into their swimming trunks.

Sam was the first to enter the water. The lake was deep, so despite the heat of the past few weeks, the water was chilly. Taking a fortifying breath, Sam let himself fall forward, arms stretched out and ready to make the first stroke through the water. He swam some little distance and then turned back towards the shore. He dived, getting his hair wet, and when he came back up the sunlight in his eyes was sharp and delicious.

On the bank, Castiel was down to his blue Ninja Turtles boxer briefs; he was dipping his bare toes into the shallows. Dean was pulling his own clothes off and trying to make Bobby come swim with them.

"Come on, Bobby. Don't be a sissy."

"Leave me alone. I'll keep the beer cold while you kids splash around."

"Cold in the bucket or cold in your stomach?"

Sam came up and lifted Cas into his arms.

"Cold!" Cas cried, leaning back from Sam's chest, his wings spreading out and bristling in protest.

"You think so?" He supposed Castiel's wasn't use to even being aware of temperatures, and that he might be more sensitive for this reason. He waded back out until the water reached his waist, and held Castiel over the still surface so that he could dip his feet in again.

"That's cold," Cas said seriously, hanging from Sam's hands and idly kicking his feet. "That is very cold."

"You didn't use to feel cold or warmth." Sam said, lifting the angel back out.

Castiel shook his head. "I was more angel before. Now I am only a little angel."

"It's cool. If you weren't a little angel, I couldn't do this." He lifted Cas high into the air. Castiel laughed and flapped his wings. He laughed even harder when Sam began to tip him forwards, so he was hanging upside down. Sam let him hang for a moment before tipping him the right way again.

Just then, Dean ran past them and threw himself into the water, splashing them both.

"Dean!"

"Sorry."

Dean swam up to them, a wicked glint in his eyes, and Sam gave him a warning look and held Cas up between them in a significant gesture. There would be no dunking, no splashing and no wrestling. Instead, Dean heaved himself up and snapped after Castiel's toes like a shark.

They swam out to the middle of the lake, Castiel riding on Dean's back. Sam followed close behind in case Castiel should need a hand, but the angel held on without tiring, cheek pressed against Dean's wet hair.

Eventually, Bobby called to them from the bank, warning them that he was starving and that if they didn't come now, he'd eat all the food by himself. So they swam back to shore, dried off, and sat down to eat. Bobby handed out beer and sandwiches, careful to keep the former out of Castiel's reach. Dean seemed to have another plan, though.

"Hey Cas," he said casually. "Want a beer?"

Castiel shook his head with a grimace.

The other two gave Dean questioning looks, and he looked pleased with himself.

"Last night, right? I'm drinking coffee, and when that runs out I grab a beer, and the little guy won't leave me alone about it. So I figured, what the hell, he wants a beer so badly, he can have it."

Sam opened his mouth to protest, but Dean held up his hand, asking him to wait. Then he turned to Cas. "Show them the face you made when I let you have the bottle."

Cas made a big happy face.

"Now show them your face when you _drank _from the bottle."

Castiel scrunched up his face, closed his eyes and stuck his tongue out in disgust. "Yuck!"

Dean nodded in satisfaction. "Lesson learned."

It grew hot again, and Castiel especially wanted back into the water, so Sam and Dean gave him swimming lessons, which he was too young to properly benefit from, but which he seemed to enjoy anyway. He paddled around with his wings held high and Sam and Dean's hands carefully cradling him.

And finally, in the end, even Bobby waded in to join them for a short swim. "I'm old," he said grumpily as Sam and Dean called him on how quickly he went back on the bank.

On the way back, Dean told Bobby about the progress he had made on the Impala, and what was left before she was ready to run again. This gave Sam the opportunity to lift Castiel into his arms again and fall back a little.

Castiel looked at him expectantly, and Sam gave him a quick smile and plunged right into what was on his mind. "Cas, you know that when you were big, we were arguing, you and Dean and Bobby and I."

The angel nodded solemnly. He lifted a hand, two fingers reaching out as if he would place them on Sam's forehead, but he thought better of it quickly. "Because I was bad."

"Because ..." It was hard to find the words, hard to speak them. "We didn't agree with each other. Thing is, it's not okay to be mad at someone who is small for something they did while they were big, so we're going to wait until you're big before we talk about it."

Castiel nodded. "Okay."

"But I need to tell you that even though you are small, it was pretty difficult for me not to be mad at you in the beginning. I think you could tell."

More nodding. "You were scary."

"Because I was hurting." Sam was walking a fine line between keeping the blame from Castiel's tiny shoulders on the one hand, and not bending over backwards on the other, but he was only walking it because Castiel was not fully a child, which was also the reason he needed to have this conversation with the angel. "I want to tell you now, even though we're not supposed to talk about it, that I have forgiven you. Really, truly forgiven you."

To Sam's horror, Castiel's eyes filled with tears.

"No, no, no, don't cry. Dean'll kill me."

But Castiel was smiling. "Thank you, Sam."

By the time they got back to Singer Salvage Yard, the sky had turned cold and pale. As they crossed the porch, Dean's stomach rumbled.

"Dinner-time," he announced.

"And you can make it," Bobby said. "I'm gonna have a nap."

Dean winked. "Don't sweat it, old man, I've got us covered." In the living room, he pulled out Sam's laptop and googled the nearest pizza place.

Bobby fell down on the couch, pulled his hat over his eyes, and was snoring away before Dean had finished placing his order.

Not ten minutes later, the doorbell rang. Sam and Dean exchanged glances.

"That was fast."

Sam went to open.

It took him a full couple of seconds to understand the tableau standing on Bobby's porch, but when he did his face immediately split into a grin so wide it was painful.

"Let's see," said the man on the porch, checking his clipboard. "That's three extra-large pepperoni and beef pizzas for Mr. Singer, his two gorillas, and the little marmoset."

Sam couldn't speak at first because he was grinning so hard. "That's ... that's a nice uniform."

Zachariah looked decidedly unimpressed. And humiliated. "If you would just sign–"

"Guys, come say hello to Zachariah!" Sam shouted into the house.

Zachariah sighed long-sufferingly. He had a bag full of pizzas standing by his feet, and was still holding the clipboard and pen out towards Sam. He was wearing a pizza boy's uniform: a shirt and a cap in two appealing purple shades that alternated in broad stripes. The logo on his breast was a winged and haloed pizza.

Dean appeared behind Sam with Castiel on his arm, and Bobby followed sleepily behind them.

"Like I said," Zachariah said loudly. "If you would just sign for the pizza–"

Sam cleared his throat, to keep from laughing, and put on a serious face. "I'd rather stop and linger in the moment for a while, wouldn't you? We haven't seen each other in so long."

Dean looked like this was Christmas come early with a side of Valentine's Day. Bobby had never dealt with Zachariah in person, but had heard the stories and seemed content to hang back and watch the boys get a little revenge. Even Castiel had a slightly satisfied glint in his eyes, though he was hiding against Dean's chest and had flattened his wings against his back.

"Do we have a camera?" Sam asked Dean.

Dean considered it. "I don't know. Bobby, do you have a camera?"

"You know I do."

"Can we set it up?"

"I guess I could go–"

"Will you sign for the damned pizza?" Zachariah growled furiously before wincing as if he had been given a electric shock.

Sam and Dean stared at him. "What was that?" Dean asked.

"That was nothing," Zachariah replied firmly, trying to glare a hole in Dean's forehead. "Now listen up you bunch of –" He winced again and continued more mildly. "Gabriel is too busy to attend to your little problems, so instead you get pizza. You sign for the pizza, I hand the pizza over, I promise to forgo the tip and you promise not to mention this to anyone ever or so help me I will–" Another wince.

"It's like he's wearing a shock collar," Sam observed.

Dean snorted, but the laughter fell when they noticed Zachariah's face. "Are you?" Dean asked.

"No." Zachariah smiled pleasantly and not very convincingly. "Now if someone would please sign their name on the dotted line …" he said through clenched teeth, holding the pen out to everyone in turn, including Castiel. "An X would do. I'm really not that picky."

"There's no visible collar," Sam said.

"True," Dean replied.

As one, they dropped their gazes down.

"You're not serious."

"Mary and Jo," Bobby said behind them. "That's just cruel."

"Sign for the pizza."

"Well, Gabriel was a trickster. Giving assholes their due and all that."

"Sign for the pizza!"

"But how does it work? How does it know when to activate?"

"Sign for the damn – ugh – pizza!"

"Can we see it?"

"JUST TAKE THE DAMN PIZZA!" Zachariah roared, wincing as he was given another shock. "WHAT THE HELL – OUCH – DO I CARE IF YOU SIGN FOR THE THING!" He threw the clipboard to the ground, kicked the bag of pizza, and with another emphatic wince he disappeared, accompanied by an almost electric sound of fluttering wings.

"I'm going to send Gabriel flowers," Dean said.

"And chocolates," Sam agreed. "And possibly an offer to have his babies."

Dean raised an eyebrow at Sam. "Dude, too much information."

"What?" Sam asked. The other three proceeded back into the depth of the house. "WHAT?" He grabbed the pizzas, closed the door and hurried after them. "Zachariah removed my lungs! I'm grateful, okay?"

The pizza was delicious. They ate in front of the TV; Dean insisted on it once he realised that Dr Sexy MD was on. Everyone gave their best effort at seeing whatever it was Dean saw in the show, but by the end of the episode they had concluded that Dean was as much a girl on the inside as the next man, and his complaints against The Little Mermaid were for this reason invalidated.

During dinner, the phone on the kitchen wall labelled "F.B.I." began to ring. Bobby went to answer it.

"Willis, FBI." He listened for a moment before grabbing a kitchen chair and falling heavily down on the seat. "Garth? Garth, shut up. No, you're not dead, I can hear that, and it's a damn miracle." He listened for a moment, rubbing his eyes with his free hand.

"What happened to Brent? Don't tell me you didn't call him." Bobby frowned like a thundercloud while the man on the other end explained himself. "Then you should have called me again! You don't hunt Djinn alone, you just ..." He straightened up in his chair suddenly, eyes distant. "Garth? Garth, where are you? Yeah, but where's that?" Another moment of listening. "Shit. And it's a whole family. You're sure?" Sam and Dean sat up slowly as they began to realise the possible significance of the call.

"No, no, don't do anything," Bobby was saying. "Stay put, board the doors and windows, get your gun and don't go to sleep. Don't let anyone touch your skin, I don't care if it's your Grandma; no one touches you, got it? I'm sending you backup. Sam and Dean Winchester. They'll be there in a few hours."

He hung up and shared a silent, loaded look with Sam and Dean. "It might just be a coincidence," he warned them.

"What's going on, Bobby?" Sam asked quietly.

"This guy's hunting a family of Djinn, and not half an hour's drive from your Mall of Monsters."

"Who is this guy?" Dean asked.

Bobby came back into the living room. "His name is Ted Garth. He's dumber than Sarah Palin, but damn enthusiastic about the job, poor sucker. Lost his family to ghouls, if I recall."

Sam got up. "I'll go get my stuff. No point in waiting."

Castiel had been watching them silently, but now he reached for Dean with a sound of distress. Dean scooped him up.

"It's just a couple of Djinn, Cas. We can take 'em."

"I don't like this, Dean," Castiel said, and once again Sam thought he sounded almost like his grown-up self.

Dean looked at the angel searchingly. "Is there something more we should know? Something you haven't told us?"

Castiel shook his head, but he was frowning. He brought his little fists up and hit himself on the head like there was something he was trying to remember.

Dean quickly stopped him. "Hey. What is it?"

Castiel huffed. "I don't know," he said with emphasis. "But I don't like this."

Dean pursed his lips. "Look ... We've got a shot at finding the little monster who hurt you. I'm not letting that opportunity go, Cas. Not for all the bad gut-feeling in the world."

Castiel bowed his head unhappily.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note: **Has it really been years? Yes it has. Oh boy. But here we are. A short update. This is only half of what should have been chapter 7, but I've discovered that I am a lot more comfortable with a shorter format, and so we'll try this for now.

Thank you so, so much for your continued interest in this story! Thank you everyone who sent me messages asking me politely to get off my butt and keep writing.

As for the next instalment ... I won't make any promises. I've learned not to do that. But as I said on tumblr, I will not give up on this story until Supernatural is over. Maybe not even then. So just ... stay tuned.

**EDIT 28.01.15:** Taking a break from SPN to see where the show is going.

* * *

><p>About three hours later, Sam and Dean were standing in front of Ted Garth's motel room door. They knocked several times without receiving a reply, so in the end Sam picked the lock, while Dean kept a lookout, gun drawn and held discreetly behind his back.<p>

The lock clicked and the door opened soundlessly. The room was dark, but the light from the door revealed bloodied sheets on the bed. Sam flicked the switch, and a single, shaded lamp sputtered to life in the ceiling.

Ted Garth was lying on the floor. On all of the floor. The floor had a wall-to-wall carpet that consisted mainly of bits of Ted. Sam and Dean covered their noses and mouths against the overwhelming stench of blood.

Sam coughed. "Aw … God. Ugh."

The man's head was one of the few things left intact, placed on the table in some sicko's idea of saying a proper hello. His features were twisted in terror.

"What the hell?"

They stood helplessly just inside the doorway, unable to comprehend what they were seeing. No Djinn would have done this; they were too clever for such savagery, and too hungry to waste blood this way. A family of Djinn trying to keep up a permanent residency in the area could not afford to do something like this.

"Dean." Sam pointed to the far wall, where blood had been used to spell out a message.

_Kiss your Cass goodbye_

Dean grabbed for his cell phone so fast that he almost dropped it, hit speed-dial and waited impatiently. "There's no answer." He paced a step forward, turned sharply, mouth twitching restlessly while he waited for someone to pick up. "There's no answer!" He hung up and tried another number. And then another. "Nothing!" He made a motion to throw the cell across the room, but Sam grabbed his wrist.

"Keep it together. We have to get back."

For a moment, the two brother's stared each other down. Then Dean took a deep breath and dropped his shoulders. "It's a three-hour drive."

Sam smiled grimly. "Not if we fly." He let go of Dean, closed his eyes and began to move his lips in a silent prayer. A moment later, Dean did the same.

_I don't give a fuck how busy you are. Get your scrawny angel ass down here. Cas is in trouble._

"You could have just said so," came Gabriel's voice.

When Dean opened his eyes, he and Sam were standing on the front porch of Bobby's house, with the Impala parked in the pitch dark yard behind them. Dean threw himself at the door, into the house and down the hallway, with Sam on his heels.

Bobby lay sprawled face down across a mattress on the living room floor. His cap had fallen off and there was blood in his hair. Gabriel was already there, kneeling beside the body.

Sam and Dean stopped short in the doorway, Dean put his hand to the wall to stave off a wave of dizzy nausea. "Bobby!"

"Don't worry, boys," Gabriel said. "It's just a little case of the deaths. Easily cured." He placed a hand on Bobby's head, and suddenly, Bobby breathed in. The blood in his hair and the pallor in his cheeks was gone.

"Bobby." Sam knelt down and gripped the old man's shoulder.

Bobby groaned, his eyes blinking open. "What happened?" He pushed himself up on his elbows, looked around and frowned at their worried faces. "What the hell happened?" He noticed the blood staining the floor and touched his head with a sudden movement, but there was no bruise or scratch there anymore. His eyes darted to Gabriel, who grinned and wiggled his fingers.

"It's that magic touch, baby."

"Where's Cas?" Dean demanded. He went to the stairs. "Cas? Castiel?" he called, but there was no answer from above.

Bobby got to his feet, shook his head and set narrowed eyes on his surroundings. "I put him to bed upstairs when ..." His eyes widened. "She killed me!"

"Who killed you?" Sam asked as Bobby stalked past him into the kitchen, leaning over the counter and peering out into the darkness beyond the window.

Dean ran upstairs without waiting for answers. The door to his and Castiel's room hung crookedly on a single hinge. White light from the lamps in the junkyard came through the shutters, which hung in tatters, like someone had tried to pull them down. Dean flicked the switch, with his stomach lodged in his throat, but this time nothing happened, no light came on. His heart pounded as he stood helplessly in the doorway, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Slowly, the black scorch marks on the walls became visible to him, the singed bedclothes and the broken light bulb in the ceiling. But there were no bodies, big or small. Before his inner eye, the scene unfolded as it must have happened only an hour or two ago. Little Cas fighting off a group of assailants with feeble bursts of light, quickly exhausting what little mojo he had, until they overwhelmed him.

Dean came back downstairs just as Bobby returned from the yard, Sam trailing him like a big, worried puppy.

"What happened?" Dean demanded. His lungs felt screwed tight, and it was easier to reach for anger than acknowledge the panic hammering deep in his stomach.

Bobby grabbed a beer from the fridge and plopped himself down at the kitchen table. He stared at the bottle, jaw working silently. "She broke this place open like a can of beans. Sigils, salt line, traps, all of it gone."

"What happened?" Dean shouted.

Bobby glared up at him. "Give me a moment, boy, I just got murdered by the local law enforcement."

Sam scowled mutinously, his big arms crossed over his chest. "It can't have been the Sheriff, Bobby. She must have been a shifter."

"Might have been," Bobby confessed to the tabletop. "I ... didn't really check."

Dean snarled. "You didn't check?"

Bobby rose abruptly. "Neither did you!" He poked his finger into Dean's chest. "You let her in first! Jodie came knocking in the middle of the night, saying she needed help, so I figured she'd gotten in trouble with the case. She had your damn cassette player with her!"

"Yeah, can we assign blame later?" Gabriel cut in. He was leaning forward on the kitchen counter and looked restless, frustrated. "This place stinks of sulphur. Whoever or whatever your Sheriff was, she was working with demons."

"The Djinn hunt was a trap," Sam said, running a hand through his hair. "Garth is dead." He had his thinking face on. Dean watched him, waiting for the conclusion. Sam inhaled. "They sent a shifter in to study us, spent days setting up a diversion for Dean and me, and completed the extraction without a hitch. This was a carefully planned operation. Demon grunts aren't that thorough." He looked at Gabriel and at Bobby, but avoided Dean's eyes. "I'm calling it: it's Crowley."

"Why would a shifter work for Crowley, though?" Bobby said. "He tortured their alphas. Not exactly bosom buddies anymore, the demons and the monsters."

Sam shrugged. "Enemy of my enemy? Cas went on a month-long no-holds-barred killing spree. They'd put aside their grudges to get him, I'm pretty sure. Or Crowley found someone willing to be bought. In the end it doesn't really matter what our Sheriff was."

Dean, meanwhile, had noticed that Gabriel's shoulders were raised as if he was shielding himself from the rest of the room.

"What do you know?" Dean asked.

Gabriel shook his head.

Dean stalked around the table, grabbed Gabriel's shoulder and dragged him around. "What do you know?" he growled. He didn't give a fuck that he was threatening an archangel, he didn't give a fuck if Gabriel decided to smite him where he stood. It was, oddly enough, not the image of Castiel's chubby baby face that was filling Dean's head, but rather his adult face, stubble, narrowed-eyed confusion, bedroom hair and all. His bones ached with the knowledge of just how much Crowley must hate that face.

Gabriel glared right back at Dean, but Dean saw that Gabriel looked tired. Not in the immortal kind of way, the heaviness in the eyes that was often detectable in higher beings, but in a human way. He looked drawn, with grey circles around his eyes, and greasy hair.

Maybe Gabriel realised what Dean was seeing, because he was the first to look away. Dean grabbed him by the lapels. "Talk, you useless son of a bitch!"

Gabriel's eyes flashed and the kitchen window exploded outwards.

The sound of glass raining down on the gravel below was the only sound as the three humans held their breaths.

But Gabriel deflated, grimacing in pain. "It's my fault. Cas was my responsibility. It's all my responsibility."

Dean let him go, leaving the angel to sullenly tug his lapels back into place.

"We've had Crowley under watch," Gabriel said without looking at anyone. "I should have been told if he so much as scratched his ass. But I've fucked up. I chose wrong."

"Who's watching Crowley?" Sam asked.

"I thought he'd be eager! I thought no one would do the job better."

Dean held himself back from violence by the skin of his teeth, impatience pounding in his temples.

"Who?" Sam asked again.

"I picked Raphael," Gabriel said reluctantly.

Bobby held out his beer. Gabriel took it and drank.

The old man tipped his hat back and leaned back in his chair. "So you didn't count on him hating Cas more than he hated Crowley. Honest mistake."

"But this is good news," Sam said, voice taking on urgency. "That means Raphael might know where Crowley is."

"Oh, he'd better," Gabriel said. "Or I will make him wish he was never born. I'll find Raphael. You three get ready for Crowley."

He was gone almost before the words were out.

Sam pushed himself away from the counter. "I'll make some more holy water. I think we're low." He hesitated for a second. "We'll ... we'll get him back, Dean. If Crowley wanted Cas dead he wouldn't have taken him." He looked like he wanted to clap Dean on the shoulder or something, but thought better of it and left. Dean's skin felt too small on his body.

"Dean," Bobby said, his tone new and low, and Dean didn't want to hear it. "I am so sorry. I let my guard down. It's my fault Cas is gone."

Dean tried to speak. Bobby wasn't to blame. No more than Dean himself, or Gabriel, or anyone.

"How about we blame Crowley?" he managed finally.

"Sounds fine for now," Bobby said, rising from the table. "I'm gonna call the Sheriff, see if she's okay. Maybe I can at least figure out what kind of creature finally got me." He snorted. "Can't believe I've been dead."

"Yeah, it's a real trip," Dean said.

He was about to head out to the Impala for their weapons, but his eyes caught on the mattress in the living room. Dean figured Bobby must have brought it all downstairs for Cas; maybe the angel didn't want to sleep upstairs alone. The duvet was upstairs, but the pillow remained here. Bobby was pacing in the backdoor hallway, so there was no one to see Dean pick the pillow up and press his face into it, inhaling Castiel's familiar scent. He hadn't really been aware of the smell until now, but his brain knew it, and as it filled his nose, his heart twisted painfully. He left for the yard with burning resolve. They would get their angel back, and make Crowley pay.

There was a moment, as he was pulling weapons out of the trunk, that Dean felt like he was going on any old monster hunt, ticking off the things he would need against the monster of the week in his head and shoving it all into a duffel bag. Then the moment was over and his hands were trembling again. He was still full of the adrenaline that had kicked in when they discovered Garth, and it had no outlet.

They had all been together only three hours ago. It felt like years. He wondered if Cas was scared, wherever he was, and whether Crowley understood that Cas was just a baby now, that he couldn't be held accountable ...

Just as he was about to slam the trunk, Dean had an epiphany. All he had to do was pray. Cas probably didn't have the mojo to come to him, but at least Dean could reassure him. He closed his eyes and bowed his head.

_Cas, can you hear me, buddy? We're coming to get you, okay, but you have to be brave and hang in there. I know you can do it; you're the bravest little guy I know. I promise that when we're back home, you and me are gonna talk. You can tell me everything you're feeling, and this time I'm gonna listen. I swear I'll get you home safe. I swear._

He kept his eyes closed for a moment longer, unable to not nourish some hope of hearing the flutter of wings and Castiel's little voice saying his name.

And someone did come, but they did not appear with a rustle of wings; Raphael and Gabriel crashed into the yard like thunder. Raphael stumbled into existence, caught himself and turned just in time for Gabriel to come striding after him.

"You! YOU speak of treachery?" Gabriel shouted, his voice quivering on the edge of something that made Dean's ears hurt. "There is a beam in your eye, brother; look to it!"

Raphael backed away, but his expression was unaffected. He was tall, dark and imposing, even in the face of all of Gabriel's thrumming power. "It must be so nice for you, after you ran away like a coward, to come back and receive father's favour. The prodigal son returned. Let's slay the fattened calf in his honour, give him the best robe and the sandals. Give him the whole farm! It's not like he doesn't deserve it!"

Gabriel's little frame was shaking with rage. "Is that what this is about? You sold a child to the King of Hell to make yourself feel better about your spanking?"

"Sold a child?" Raphael echoed with disbelief, lips curling. "All I did was spread a little gossip. Beneath me, perhaps, but then I have come down in the world." He cast a disparaging glance around the yard, eyes passing over Dean like he wasn't even there. "You told me to watch Crowley, you didn't say we couldn't chat. He asked after Castiel. I obliged him."

Gabriel closed his eyes. Fatigue took over, crushing his fury. "You know Father is watching us, and yet this is how you spend our second chance? You threw it away for petty revenge?"

If Raphael had been the type that laughed, he would have laughed at that. "Have you done so much better, Gabriel? What is Zachariah doing these days?"

"Zachariah is taking lessons in humility, and he had it coming."

Raphael stood like a immovable pillar of black stone, but there was something triumphant in his expression. "But you see that it is up to us to dispense justice to the deserving that our Glorious Father seems to have forgotten, and if Zachariah, that cog in the wheel, had it coming, what then of Castiel, slayer of thousands, betrayer of his own kind?"

"Are you blind?" Gabriel shouted, eyes sparking again. "Castiel is a child!"

"Castiel is an abomination."

Dean grabbed the nearest gun and shot Raphael in the head.

Raphael grimaced briefly, before turning slowly to look at Dean. "Winchester."

Dean gave him a mirthless smile. "I get that you guys have issues, but I couldn't care less who is to blame for what, or who Daddy loved most, or whose butt hurts more. Tell me where Crowley has taken Cas, or I will make you wish God had banished you to the cage!"

Raphael's eyes stormed with ancient grace. Dean stood his ground. Raphael leaned in. "I don't know where your pet is, Winchester, but I hope Crowley is chewing on his bones."

Dean shot Raphael in the head again.

Gabriel grabbed the gun and wrested it out of his hand. "Not productive, Dean."

"But you two arguing is?" Dean shouted.

Gabriel ignored him in favour of turning back to Raphael. "Do you know where Crowley took Cas?"

Raphael shook his head calmly.

"You are not in my way, Raph," Gabriel said. "This is me, giving you a chance to make up for what you've done. Tell me where they are."

"I don't know," Raphael insisted. "Crowley must have prepared a place while I was looking the other way."

Gabriel sighed, disappointed. "You never look the other way. Fine. I leave you to Father's mercy."

"Woah, woah, that's it?" Dean asked, surprised at the sudden dismissal. "How are we supposed to find Crowley?"

Raphael laughed, low to himself. "Don't worry, Winchester. Gabriel commands the Heavenly Host. Never mind that few of them would actually consent to help in Castiel's rescue; to my dear brother we are nothing but soulless automata anyway. He doesn't respect our boundaries."

Gabriel grew visibly pale. "That's not ... true."

"And yet you intend to make them all give up their work to search the globe for Castiel. Am I wrong?"

Gabriel looked down. Dean wanted to say something. Of course that was what they would do! Screw every one of those winged dicks! What did it matter? But he held his tongue. Sensed that there was a struggle going on in Gabriel that might be resolved here.

When Gabriel lifted his head, his eyes were determined, his face calm. "Am I willing to abuse my power to save my little brother? Yeah. Yeah, I am. Cause it's the right thing to do. Now get the fuck out of my sight."

Raphael only hesitated for a second before fluttering off.

Gabriel closed his eyes on a deep breath. "Okay. I'll be back in a sec with the location."

"You're making yourself unpopular," Dean said.

Gabriel shrugged and gave him a half-smile. "Maybe with some, but I know one little guy who's gonna think I'm the coolest big brother ever. We just gotta find him."

"Hop to then. We'll be ready." They shared a look that spoke of their common need to see Castiel safe. Then Gabriel was gone too.


End file.
